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THOUGHT  AND  EXPRESSION 
IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 


BY   THE   SAME    AUTHOR 

Ancient  Ideals:  A  Study  of  Intellectual  and 
Spiritual  Growth  from  Early  Times  to  the 
Establishment   of   Christianity    {2   Volumes) 

The  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages 

The  Mediaeval  Mind:  A  History  of  the  De- 
velopment of  Thought  and  Emotion  in  the 
Middle  Ages   {2  Volumes) 

Prophets,  Poets,  and  Philosophers  of  the 
Ancient  World 


THOUGHT 
AND  EXPRESSION 

IN  THE 

SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 


BY 

HENRY  OSBORN  TAYLOR 


Vol.  I 


lI3etti  gotk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1920 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYBIGHT,  1920, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  printed.      Published,  July,  1920 


TO 

J.  I.  T. 


PREFACE 

My  purpose  is  to  give  an  intellectual  survey  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  I  would  set  forth  the  human  suscep- 
tibilities and  faculties  of  this  alluring  time,  its  tastes, 
opinions  and  appreciations,  as  they  expressed  themselves 
in  scholarship  and  literature,  in  philosophy  and  science, 
and  in  religious  reform.  Italian  painting  Is  presented 
briefly  as  the  supreme  self-expression  of  the  Italians. 

The  more  typical  intellectual  Interests  of  the  fifteenth 
century  also  are  discussed  for  their  own  sake,  while  those 
of  the  previous  time  are  treated  as  introductory.  I  have 
tried  to  show  the  vital  continuity  between  the  prior  me- 
diaeval development  and  the  period  before  us. 

The  mind  must  fetch  a  far  compass  if  it  would  see  the 
sixteenth  century  truly.  Every  stage  in  the  life  and 
thought  of  Europe  represents  a  passing  phase,  which  Is 
endowed  with  faculties  not  begotten  of  itself,  and  brings 
forth  much  that  Is  not  exclusively  its  own.  For  good  or 
ill,  for  patent  progress,  or  apparent  retrogression,  its  ca- 
pacities, idiosyncrasies  and  productions  belong,  in  large 
measure,  to  the  whole,  which  Is  made  up  of  past  as  well 
as  present,  the  latter  pregnant  with  the  future.  Yet, 
though  fed  upon  the  elements  (sometimes  the  refuse)  of 
the  past,  each  time  seems  to  develop  according  to  its  own 
nature.  Waywardly,  foolishly,  or  with  wholesome  orig- 
inality, it  evolves  a  novel  temperament  and  novel 
thoughts. 

We  shall  treat  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  as 
a  final  and  objective  present;  and  all  that  went  before  will 
be  regarded  as  a  past  which  entered  into  them.  It  in- 
cluded pagan  Antiquity,  Judaism  and  the  Gospel,  the 
influence  of  the  fecund  East,  the  contribution  of  the 
Christian  Fathers, —  this  whole  store  of  knowledge  and 
emotion,  not  merely  as  it  came  into  being,  but  in   its 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

changing  progress  through  the  Middle  Ages,  until  it 
entered  the  thought  of  our  period  and  became  the  stim- 
ulus or  suggestion  of  its  feeling.  Distinctive  mediaeval 
creations  likewise  must  be  included,  seeing  that  they 
also  entered  formatively  into  the  constitutions  of  later 
men.  The  Middle  Ages  helped  antiquity  to  shape  the 
faculties  and  furnish  the  tastes  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
These  faculties  and  tastes  were  then  applied  to  what  the 
past  seemed  also  to  offer  as  from  a  distinct  and  separate 
platform.  Only  by  realizing  the  action  of  these  forma- 
tive and  contributive  agencies,  shall  we  perceive  this  pe- 
riod's true  relationships,  and  appreciate  its  caused  and 
causal  being,  begotten  of  the  past,  yet  vital  (as  each  pe- 
riod Is)  with  Its  own  spirit,  and  big  with  a  modernity 
which  was  not  yet. 

Two  pasts  may  be  distinguished,  the  one  remote,  the 
other  proximate.  The  former  may  be  taken  as  consist- 
ing of  the  antique  world  as  It  became  Its  greater  self, 
and  then  as  It  crumbled,  while  Its  thought  and  mood  were 
assuming  those  forms  In  which  they  passed  Into  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  The  proximate  or  Immediate  past  was  the 
mediaeval  time.  Itself  progressing  century  after  cen- 
tury under  the  Influence  of  whatever  had  entered  Into  It, 
chiefly  through  those  last  solvent  and  transition  cen- 
turies In  which  the  remote  past  ended. 

The  Middle  Ages  and  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  cen- 
tury bore  the  same  fundamental  relationship  to  this  re- 
mote past.  Each  succeeding  mediaeval  century,  besides 
Inheriting  what  had  become  known  In  the  time  directly 
preceding  It,  endeavored  to  reach  back  to  the  remote  past 
for  further  treasure.  Thus  the  twelfth  century  sought 
to  reach  behind  the  eleventh.  In  order  to  learn  more  of 
the  greater  past,  and  the  thirteenth  reached  behind  the 
twelfth.  So  Petrarch,  In  the  fourteenth,  would  reach  be- 
hind the  vociferously  damned  thirteenth  century  to  an- 
tiquity Itself;  and  the  fifteenth  century  humanists  en- 
deavored to  do  likewise.  That  century,  like  Petrarch's 
time,  drew  from  Its  immediate  mediaeval  past  as  co- 
piously as  each  mediaeval  century  drew  from  Its  predeces- 


PREFACE  ix 

sor,  and  willy  nilly  resembled  the  mediaeval  centuries  In 
striving  to  reach  back  of  them  for  treasures  previously  un- 
disclosed. 

One  thinks  of  the  transmitted  influence  of  the  past, 
whether  remote  or  proximate,  as  knowledge  and  sugges- 
tion, as  intellectual  or  emotional  or  social  material  to  be 
appropriated  and  made  further  use  of.  It  is  well  to  think 
of  it  also  as  flowing  on  in  modes  of  expression,  which 
constitute  the  finished  form  of  the  matter,  whether  the 
form  lie  in  language  or  in  the  figures  of  plastic  art. 
Thoughts  and  emotions  cannot  pass  from  one  time  to 
another  save  in  modes  of  their  expression.  And  the 
more  finished  and  perfect,  the  more  taking,  the  more  beau- 
tiful, the  form  of  expression,  the  more  enduring  will  be 
Its  influence  and  effect.  The  seemingly  formless  ma- 
terial which  is  transmitted  orally  or  in  manuscripts  or 
printed  books  from  age  to  age,  had  necessarily  reached 
some  mode  of  expression,  however  vile.  And  although 
much  wretched  matter  has  come  down  through  time,  we 
may  not  ascribe  its  survival  to  the  shortcomings  of  its 
form,  but  rather  to  the  fact  that  somehow  in  its  wretch- 
edness and  intellectual  squalor  It  suited  the  squalid  ig- 
norance of  men. 

So  It  is  fruitful  to  think,  for  instance,  of  each  mediaeval 
century,  as  well  as  of  the  great  sixteenth,  as  drawing  the 
language  of  Its  thinking  from  the  past,  and  then  building 
up  Its  own  forms  of  thinking  and  expression.  Each  prov- 
ince of  discipline  furnishes  concepts  and  a  vocabulary. 
As  each  century  appropriates  them  and  makes  them  its 
own,  they  become  Its  modes  of  thought,  and  the  forms  of 
its  self-expression.  Thus  not  only  thought,  but  the  lan- 
guage of  expression,  Is  handed  on  with  enhancements 
from  generation  to  generation.  Each  generation  uses 
the  thought,  and  expresses  itself  In  the  forms  and  con- 
cepts, which  It  has  made  Its  own  —  has  made  Into  Its 
self-expression.  Yet  there  Is  some  change,  some  In- 
crease, some  advance.  To  the  transformation  of  inher- 
ited thought  and  phrase  Into  modes  of  self-expression, 
each  century  or  generation  brings  a  tone  and  temper  of 


X  PREFACE 

its  own,  perhaps  some  change  of  attitude  toward  life, 
and  at  all  events  the  increment  and  teaching  of  the  ex- 
perience which  has  come  to  it  through  living. 

Difficulties  of  arrangement  confront  a  work  like  the 
present.  Shall  it  cleave  to  racehood  and  nationality  or 
follow  topics?  Topics  ignore  racial  lines  and  geographi- 
cal boundaries. 

The  plan  must  bend  to  the  demands  on  it.  Sometimes 
racial  traits  dominate  an  individual,  and  the  conditions  of 
his  life  and  land  shape  his  career,  even  a  great  career 
like  Luther's.  A  national  situation  may  point  the  sub- 
stance of  an  issue,  as,  in  England,  in  Wyclif's  contro- 
versy with  the  papacy.  For  quite  another  illustration, 
one  may  observe  how  a  diversity  of  interest  and  taste 
between  Italians  and  Frenchmen  impressed  a  different 
purpose  and  manner  upon  classical  studies  in  Italy  and 
France. 

On  the  other  hand  such  a  story  as  that  of  the  advance 
of  the  physical  sciences  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies has  little  to  do  with  land  or  race;  the  votaries  be- 
long to  every  people,  and  pursue  their  investigations  Indif- 
ferently in  their  own  countries  or  where  foreign  localities 
offer  greater  advantages.  So  a  general  survey  should 
follow  the  course  of  the  most  dominant  and  vital  ele- 
ments. 

A  kindred  question  goes  to  the  roots  of  the  truth  of 
phenomena :  should  one  adhere  to  a  temporal  arrange- 
ment, century  by  century,  or  follow  sequences  of  Influence 
and  effect  across  the  Imaginary  boundaries  of  these  arbi- 
trary time  divisions?  While  it  Is  convenient  to  speak  of 
''  centuries,"  one  is  always  pursuing  the  vital  continuity 
of  effect.  The  virtue  of  fruitful  effort  passes  Into  future 
achievement.  One  seeks  to  follow  facts  In  their  progeny. 
Yet  this  Is  difficult,  since  the  genealogical  tree  Is  Infinitely 
ramified,  and  every  event,  every  achievement,  has  as 
many  forbears  as  a  human  being!  The  truthfulness  of 
events  lies  in  the  process  of  becoming,  rather  than  in  the 


PREFACE 


XI 


concrete  phenomenon  which  catches  our  attention.  It 
would  be  as  foolish  to  end  the  consideration  of  Petrarch 
with  his  death  as  it  would  be  to  treat  him  as  if  he  and 
his  work  and  influence  really  began  the  day  when  he  was 
born,  or  first  read  Cicero.  Nothing  begins  or  ends. 
We  may  even  think  of  all  that  is,  or  ever  was  or  will  be, 
as  one  mighty  self-evolving  present,  which  holds  the  ef- 
fective being,  the  becoming,  of  the  past,  and  contains  the 
future,  of  which  this  present  is  in  turn  the  becoming. 

Henry  Osborn  Taylor. 

New  York,  May,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  I 
THE  HUMANISM  OF  ITALY 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Litterae  Humaniores:  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio      3 

CHAPTER  II 
Italian  Humanists  of  the  Early  Fifteenth  Century    26 

CHAPTER  III 
Lorenzo,  Poliziano,  Ariosto,  Tasso 54 

CHAPTER  IV 

Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini  and  Their  Forerun- 
ners        72 

CHAPTER  V 
Italian  Self-Expression  in  Painting         97 

BOOK  II 
ERASMUS  AND  LUTHER 

CHAPTER  VI 
Scholarship  in  Germany  and  the  Netherlands     .     .   141 

CHAPTER  VII 

Desiderius  Erasmus,  the  Northern  Apostle  of  Let- 
ters and  Reasonableness i55 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Spiritual  and  Political  Preparation  for  Luther  183 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 
Martin  Luther 207 

I.     Ferment  and  Explosion 207 

II.     Luther's  Freeing  of  His  Spirit 219 

III.     The  Further  Expression  of  the  Man   ....   231 

Appendix  on  Melanchthon  and  Zwingli      ....  269 

BOOK  III 
THE  FRENCH  MIND 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Unlettered  Wit  of  Louis  XI,   Commynes,   and 

Villon        279 

CHAPTER  XI 
Some  French  Humanists 295 

CHAPTER  XII 
The  Circle  of  Marguerite  of  Navarre 312 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Francois  Rabelais 319 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Poetic  Ennoblement  of  French  through  Imitation 

OF  the  Classics 334 

CHAPTER  XV 

Self-Expression  through  Translation  and  Appropria- 
tion: Amyot,  Bodin,  Montaigne 348 

CHAPTER  XVI 
Ramus 37^ 

CHAPTER  XVII 

John  Calvin 384 

I.     Humanist  Reformers 384 

II.     Calvin's  Formative  Years 389 

III.  The  Work  at  Geneva 395 

IV.  The  Christian  Institute 402 


BOOK  I 
THE  HUMANISM  OF  ITALY 


THOUGHT  AND   EXPRESSION   IN 
THE  SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  LITTERAE  HUMANIORES  :  PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO 

Humanism  in  a  literary  sense  is  usually  thought  of  as 
referring  to  humane  studies,  the  litterae  humaniores. 
Their  academic  field  has  always  been  the  literature  and 
plastic  arts  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  conception  seems 
just,  as  far  as  it  reaches.  For,  in  the  main,  the  thought, 
the  literature  and  the  plastic  arts  of  Greece  and  Rome  are 
the  record  and  expression  of  man  living  on  the  earth,  and 
all  things  are  conceived,  reflected  on,  and  felt  in  their  re- 
lationships to  humanity.  Occasionally  Greek  thought 
and  its  expression  soared  beyond  the  sphere  of  man,  as 
sometimes  with  Plato  and  his  spiritual  descendants.  And 
the  world  of  nature  was  embraced  by  Aristotle  and  those 
who  preceded  or  followed  him  in  physical  researches. 
Among  the  Greeks  there  were  wise  physicians,  great  phys- 
icists, mathematicians  and  astronomers.  Greek  achieve- 
ments In  physical  science  are  liable  to  be  Ignored  because 
we  have  gone  so  far  beyond  them. 

But  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Greece  still  offered  much 
physical  science  for  profitable  study  by  the  learned  world, 
which  was  only  beginning  a  systematic  Investigation  of  the 
phenomena  of  nature.  Interest  in  natural  phenomena 
was  as  yet  scarcely  de-humanized,  or  accepted  and  pursued 
without  regard  to  the  assumed  connection  between  the 
world  of  nature  and  the  fortunes  or  designs  of  men.  Na- 
ture bristled  with  portents.  The  science  of  Astrology 
observed  the  heavens  for  horoscopes  and  looked  to  celes- 
tial influences  upon  men.  But  Astronomy  was  Astrol- 
ogy de-humanized  and  set  upon  the  basis  of  its  own  ex- 

3 


4  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

planatory  truth  regarding  the  movements  of  the  sun  and 
moon  and  stars. 

Such  astronomy  had  been  pursued  by  the  astronomers 
of  Alexandria,  who  still  did  not  neglect  Its  astrological 
bearings.  With  the  Greeks,  natural  science  generally  was 
mindful  of  the  connection  between  the  apparent  ends  of 
nature  and  the  welfare  or  miscarriages  of  men.  Greek 
science  was  apt  to  be  anthropomorphic,  and  Greek  philos- 
ophy in  Its  treatment  of  physical  and  metaphysical  truth 
remained  genially  human.  In  all  Greek  thinking,  man 
remained  the  ttoAc?,  the  city-state,  whence  thoughts  as  citi- 
zens went  forth  to  return  with  sheaves  of  knowledge  that 
were  to  be  transformed  to  human  wisdom. 

So  philosophy  and  natural  science,  as  part  of  the  Greek 
consideration  of  life,  are  not  excluded  from  Greek  human- 
ism, which  brought  all  intellectual  interests  Into  Its  web 
and  kept  them  circling  around  man.  This  is  why,  al- 
though we  no  longer  quite  determine  our  thinking  by  what 
Plato  said  or  Aristotle,  we  cherish  their  metaphysics  as 
a  beautiful  and  still  moving  human  creation,  closely  knit 
into  the  intellectual  needs  of  man.  And  the  Greek  and 
Latin  literature,  the  poetry,  the  immortal  stories  of  hu- 
man fortunes,  the  profound  and  inclusive  consideration  of 
human  life,  all  these  have  never  ceased  to  charm  the  gen- 
erations of  men,  nor  have  they  ceased  to  be  perennial 
fonts  of  human  illumination  and  consideration  of  human 
life.  They  are  a  well  which  no  one  can  exhaust,  but  from 
which  every  one  may  draw  according  to  the  capacities  of 
his  understanding. 

Accordingly  the  literature  of  Rome  and  Greece,  the 
Classics  par  excellence,  have  been  called  the  humanities; 
the  reading  and  study  of  them  have  been  called  humane 
studies,  and  their  votaries  have  been  known  as  humanists. 
Yet  the  proper  humanist,  whether  belonging  to  the  six- 
teenth century  or  to  other  times,  is  such  not  only  In  his 
pursuits,  but  In  his  mind.  He  must  be  as  that  which  he 
reads  and  loves,  interested  and  absorbed  In  man  here  on 
this  earth,  in  his  Individuality  and  accordant  or  disaccord- 
ant  fortunes,  In  his  loves  and  hates,  his  fancies  and  de- 
sires. In  all  that  makes  the  atmosphere  of  mortal  life. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO  5 

He  will  be  not  merely  a  reader  of  the  classics,  but  an 
individual  of  definite  temperament  and  taste,  with  which 
his  favorite  studies  accord.  His  pursuits  are  the  fruit 
of  his  desires  and  opinions,  the  fruit  of  his  personality  in 
fine.  Consequently  his  humanism  with  its  occupations, 
pre-occupations,  and  achievement,  is  an  expression  of  him- 
self. And  when  there  are  many  humanists,  living  and 
reading  and  studying  at  the  same  time,  delighting  in  the 
discussion  and  exploitation  of  their  common  pursuits,  hu- 
manism becomes  a  phase  of  the  time,  a  phase  of  its  self- 
expression.  Such  humanism  is  not  apt  to  flourish  now, 
because  our  horizons  are  too  large,  and  we  have  a  differ- 
ent consciousness  of  a  universe,  in  which  man  is  a  rather 
recent  counter  and  one  that  possibly  may  also  pass,  as  the 
creatures  of  prior  geologic  ages  have  had  their  aeons  and 
have  passed  away.  It  is  not  that  we  constantly  look  be- 
yond to  another  and  immortal  sphere,  as  most  people  did 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  many  humanists  in  the  next  cen- 
turies more  perfunctorily.  But  natural  science,  physical 
science,  biological  science,  all  for  their  own  sake,  have 
their  innings  now,  and  the  man-centered  equilibrium  of  the 
old  humanists  is  at  least  tipped,  if  not  upset. 

In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  a  large  propor- 
tion of  active-minded  men  devoted  themselves  to  humane 
studies,  possessed  humanistic  tempers,  and  took  a  human- 
istic view  of  life.  They  were  absorbed  in  the  mortal  life 
of  man,  their  own  especially;  in  its  conduct,  deeds  and 
passions,  in  its  whims  and  desires  and  fancies,  in  its  suc- 
cess or  failures,  and  in  the  moral,  philosophical,  esthetic 
consideration  of  it  all.  They  read  and  studied  the  great 
writings  which  were  the  universal  and  glorious  exponents 
of  these  fascinating  matters,  and  they  were  drawn  by 
everything  connected  with  that  antique  world  of  which 
these  classic  writers  were  the  flower.  So  humanism  may 
be  deemed  a  phase  of  the  self-expression  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries  and  a  characteristic  feature  of 
their  entire  mental  progress. 


THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 


The  disparate  humanity  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  re- 
quired some  centuries  to  develop  a  full  complement  of 
humane  qualities.  Only  the  antique  Latin  literature 
could  be  the  guide,  and  furnish  the  means,  of  such  devel- 
opment. Too  constantly  this  literature  of  litterae  hu- 
7naniores  was  used  wrongly  and  wilfully  as  the  vehicle  of 
what  it  did  not  contain.  Men  found  in  it  instruction,  set 
in  allegory,  touching  the  mysteries  of  all  the  worlds  and 
man  their  denizen.  Yet  no  century  was  completely  lack- 
ing in  humanists,  who,  perhaps  in  a  hampered  or  unin- 
structed  way,  looked  at  the  classics  truly,  and  found  in 
them  solace  and  suggestion  touching  life. 

The  litterae  humaniores  were  admirably  cultivated  by 
certain  men  In  the  twelfth  century;  ^  yet  as  it  closed,  the 
absorbing  interest  in  Aristotelian  scholasticism  began  to 
prove  detrimental  to  letters,  although  It  did  not  hamper 
the  splendid  advance  in  building  and  sculpture  and  glass 
painting,  which  Is  as  great  a  glory  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury as  Thomas  Aquinas  himself.  The  main  inspiration 
of  that  Gothic  art  was  religious,  even  theological,  rather 
than  humane.  Yet  it  embraced  and  seemed  to  carry 
heavenward  humanity's  daily  round  of  tasks  and  inter- 
ests, thus  representing  an  ennobled  or  sublimated  human- 
Ism.  But  while  it  lifted  human  nature,  it  did  less  to  en- 
large it  or  promote  the  capacity  for  mortal  happiness  and 
joy. 

This  was  to  be  the  office  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  Clas- 
sics. Through  the  Middle  Ages  and  afterwards,  they 
were  to  expand  and  equip  humanity  upon  the  earth,  and 
uplift  it  so  far  as  might  be  without  drawing  it  up  to 
heaven.  They  were  to  enrich  human  life  by  humanizing 
all  that  made  man's  environment,  transforming  the  world 
in  which  he  found  himself  Into  objects  of  human  percep- 
tion. Interest,  sentiment.  They  also  furnished  their 
lovers  with  a  variety  of  just  reflections  upon  life,  and  fos- 
tered in  them  the  habit  of  consideration. 

1  Cf.   Taylor,    The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Chap.   XXXI.     My  references   to 
this  work  are  to  the  paging  and  chapters  of  the  second  and  third  editions. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO  7 

The  vigorous  literary  use  of  the  vernaculars  had,  by 
the  fourteenth  century,  lowered  the  vitality  and  impaired 
the  clarity  of  the  Latin  still  employed  by  educated  men. 
Especially,  the  Latin  of  scholastic  philosophy  and  politi- 
cal controversy  had  become  a  dreadful  example  of  how  a 
language  could  be  mishandled.  While  the  learned  of  no 
one  country  held  the  monopoly  of  this  abuse,  still  the  ob- 
noxious jargon  of  scholasticism  was  in  the  main  a  product 
of  northern  lands,  where  interest  in  theology  had  pos- 
sessed so  many  minds.  Men  who  were  free  from  that 
obsession  would  naturally  detest  its  lingo.  But  in  dis- 
torting the  Latin  tongue,  the  treatises  upon  the  civil  law 
were  not  so  far  behind,  and  it  happened  that  the  strongest 
personal  reaction  against  these  logical  and  linguistic  de- 
cadences arose  In  one  who  hated  scholasticism  and  had  no 
hking  for  the  law,  to  which  his  father  would  have  appren- 
ticed him.  This  reaction  proved  a  lasting  irritant  with 
Petrarch,  although  It  was  not  a  dominant  influence  in  his 
Hfe. 

For  such,  one  turns  to  his  admiration  for  antiquity  and 
his  love  of  the  classic  Latin  literature.  Thousands  of  his 
countrymen  had  felt  the  like  before  him.  One  thinks  not 
only  of  Dante  himself,  but  of  the  Paduan  Mussato,  who 
cared  for  Latin  letters  and  was  crowned  poet  in  Padua  In 
13 14.2  In  Italy  the  cult  of  antiquity,  with  a  dumb  cultiva- 
tion of  the  classics,  had  not  been  as  sporadic,  or  as  pressed 
upon  by  other  Intellectual  interests,  as  In  the  north.  It 
was  always  there,  In  more  or  less  clear  consciousness, 
working  with  more  or  less  energy.  In  the  fourteenth 
century  It  was  natural  that  a  love  of  classic  letters  should 
spring  up  In  an  Italian  breast;  and  there  were  men  in 
Italy  ready  to  catch  the  fire  —  just  as  In  England,  when 
Wycllf's  Ideas  were  once  started,  there  were  men  of  kin- 
dred mind  to  carry  them  on. 

But  Petrarch  was  a  great  Inaugurator.  While  young, 
he  was  recognized  as  poeta,  a  title  dear  to  Italian  ears 
and  hearts.     That  gave  him  popular  acclaim.     He  pos- 

2Cf.  Zardo,  Mussato,  (Padua  1884).     He  was  particularly  studious  of 
I-ivy,  Senepa  an4  Ovidr 


8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

sessed  a  penetrating  and  sensitive  Intelligence.  He  had 
also  a  quality  helpful  to  a  successful  man  of  letters,  the 
faculty  of  pose, —  In  his  case  the  faculty  of  posing  for 
what  he  really  was,  with  added  pretensions  to  much  that 
he  was  not.  He  never  laid  aside  the  pose  of  gifted  poet, 
supreme  man  of  letters:  restorer  of  the  glories  of  an- 
tiquity. If  this  was  pose,  it  was  also  fact.  But  such  a 
poet,  scholar,  restorer  of  a  greater  past,  should  be  above 
personal  vanities,  free  from  envy,  superior  to  greed. 
Petrarch  posed  as  such  a  one,  in  his  writings  and  before 
his  world;  and  such  he  was  not.  For  he  was  vain  and 
envious,  and  If  not  Inordinately  greedy,  he  was  not  the 
divitiariim  contemptor  eximius  that  he  calls  himself  In  his 
Letter  to  Posterity;  in  which  he  otherwise  elaborates  his 
pose:  "  In  others  I  perceived  pride,  not  In  myself,  et  cum 
parvus  fuerim,  semper  minor  judicio  meo  fui.  Kings  and 
princes  cherished  me,  I  know  not  why,  and  I  was  with 
some  of  them  as  If  they  rather  were  with  me !  "  Even  in 
writings  devoted  to  searchings  of  himself,  but  which  also 
safeguarded  his  pose,  one  sees  that  he  was  enormously 
self-satisfied. 

If  these  traits  give  a  certain  smugness  to  his  character, 
they  helped  to  make  him,  in  his  lifetime  and  with  poster- 
ity, the  most  successful  of  literary  men:  successful  in 
leading  his  life  as  he  wished  and  In  accomplishing  what 
he  was  capable  of;  successful  In  Impressing  himself  upon 
contemporaries  and  posterity  exactly  as  he  would  be  taken. 
Although  he  thought  himself  unfortunate  In  the  hour  of 
his  birth,  he  was  most  fortunate  both  In  the  hour  and 
place.  For  his  genius  led  him  to  those  very  pursuits  to 
which  Italy,  and  after  her  the  north,  were  soon  to  turn 
with  unprecedented  ardor.  While  he  lived,  large  and 
distinguished  circles  of  like-minded  admirers  revered  him 
as  unique  In  his  knowledge  and  virtuosity.  It  became  an 
amiable  convention  among  them  to  speak  of  him  as  equal- 
ling Cicero  In  eloquence  and  Virgil  in  poetry.  Boccaccio 
says  it,  and  Nelli  writing  thus :  Te  solum  legens,  Maro- 
nem  CIceronemque  legam.^     The  same  sweetly  friendly 

^  Lettres   de  Francesco   Nelli  a  Petrarque,   ed.    H.    Cochin    (Champion 
X892),  Ep.  14  —  Boccaccio  in  Ep.  Seniles,  XVII,  z. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO  9 

Nelli  begs  to  be  numbered  among  his  little  slaves  (servu- 
los),  and  accounts  himself  happy  to  have  lived  in  the 
same  age  with  him.  He  describes  the  excitement  over 
the  supposed,  and  then  assured,  arrival  of  a  letter  from 
Petrarch:  pulsat  nuntius  januam  —  a  cry  bursts  forth, 
the  servants  run  to  usher  in  the  bearer,  who  delivers  to 
us  "  thy  letters,  nay  rather,  thy  most  precious  pearls."  ^ 
Who  would  have  written  this  to  Dante  or  Michelangelo? 
Or  when  did  the  great  of  this  earth  come  to  v/atch  Dante 
composing  his  Inferno,  as  Pandolfo  Alalatesta,  although 
sick,  is  brought  supported  by  his  servants  to  see  Petrarch 
In  his  own  chair,  surrounded  by  his  books?  Petrarch 
was  an  excellent  flatterer  himself,  especially  of  Kings 
from  whom  he  sought  emolument  and  honor.  His 
praise  of  the  epigrams  of  Robert,  King  of  Naples,  de- 
served much.^ 

In  fine,  before  his  death  his  fame  v/as  spread  abroad, 
and  afterwards  grew  mightier,  because  he  had  been  in  life 
a  lovely  poet  in  the  volgare,  and  above  that  had  been  the 
lofty  leader  and  achiever  in  what  was  becoming  a  domi- 
nating intellectual  movement.  He  was  thus  the  proto- 
typal embodiment  of  the  rising  zeal  for  classical  study, 
and  of  the  best  critical  phases  of  it,  for  he  saw  the  classics 
as  clearly  as  any  one  with  his  available  lights  could  see. 
He  embodied  also  the  ambition  and  misdirected  effort  of 
the  coming  period,  in  Italy  at  least,  to  compose  works  in 
Latin  prose  and  metre,  modelled  upon  classical  standards 
of  beauty.  His  attitude  toward  his  own  exquisite  poems 
in  the  volgare  was  that  which  was  held  to  be  correct  by 
later  Italian  humanists,  who  often  professed  to  despise 
the  vulgar  tongue.  Including  their  own  indiscretions  in  the 
same.  Finally  there  was  nothing  in  his  career  or  char- 
acter that  the  coming  time  could  not  admire.  He  had 
professed  his  contempt  for  wealth,  and  declared  his  free- 
dom from  such  little  weaknesses  as  envy  and  malice;  and 
even  if  he  were  not  quite  taken  at  his  word  (like  state- 

*  Ep.  II.     Lettres  de  Francesco  Nelli  a  Pefrarque. 

5  Sen.  I,  6;  Fam.  IV,  3.     Petrarch's  letters  —  Familiares,  Variae,  Seniles 
—  are  usually  thus  cited:    Fam.,  Van,  Sen, 


lo  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ments  were  to  be  humanist  conventions),  his  foibles  could 
not  appear  as  blots  to  later  men  whose  characters  openly 
presented  the  same.  For  most  of  them  were  vain,  self- 
conscious  and  affected,  and  addicted  to  envy,  hatred,  and 
malice  and  all  unseemliness. 

As  touching  Petrarch,  we  may  say,  for  ourselves,  that 
like  Cicero,  whom  he  adored,  and  like  Erasmus  after  him, 
he  was  a  great  man  of  letters,  and,  like  them,  a  man  one 
must  sympathize  with  In  order  to  judge  rightly,  and  "  be 
to  his  faults  a  little  blind."  ^'Lihris  satiari  nequeo'*  he 
writes  In  a  pleasant  letter  on  books  and  reading  (Fam. 
Ill,  17) .  Wherever  there  are  books,  some  men  are  born 
with  a  sheer  love  of  them,  and  It  may  be  with  that  added 
Impulse  toward  expression  which  makes  a  man  of  letters. 
In  the  fourteenth  century  what  should  a  scholarly  Italian 
read,  when  he  disliked  the  law  and  detested  scholasticism? 
—  what  Indeed,  except  the  Latin  classics,  especially  when 
he  was  a  poet,  and  born  with  a  love  of  literary  form? 
Despising  his  own  age,  foolishly  wishing  to  have  lived  In 
some  other  time,  he  attached  himself  to  the  cult  of  an- 
tiquity: "  Incubul  unlce  Inter  multa  ad  notltlam  vetu- 
statls,"  he  says  In  his  Letter  to  Posterity.  But  he  Is  glad 
to  have  been  born  In  Italy  and  not  In  the  Scythian  north. 
He  praises  Roman  Italy  In  comparison  with  Greece,  and 
the  Latin  as  compared  with  the  Greek  literature,  of 
which  he  knew  nothing  save  from  report. 

Naturally  when  Petrarch  came  to  Rome,  he  felt  a  great 
sensation  —  how  many  pilgrim  hearts  had  swelled  at  the 
sight  of  those  towers,  through  all  the  Middle  Ages !  It 
was  there  that  his  heart's  vainest  wish  was  to  be  fulfilled, 
when  he  was  given  the  laurel  crown  upon  the  Capitol. 
He  was  acquainted  with  that  self-deceived  arouser  of  en- 
thusiasms, RIenzI  —  Tribune  of  the  Roman  People!  — 
and  writes  to  him  in  words  as  foolish  as  the  shouts  of  the 
Roman  populace:  "Salve,  noster  Camllle,  noster  Ro- 
mule,"  (or  by  whatever  name  thou  wouldst  be  called)  — 
"  salve  Romanae  libertatls,  Romanae  pads,  Romanae 
tranqulllltatis  auctor!  "      (Var.  48.) 

Toward  the  Catholic  faith  Petrarch  stood  as  a  med- 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO  n 

laeval  man,  but  with  some  supervening  waverings  which, 
in  our  eyes,  make  his  religious  attitude  more  reasonable. 
He  had  read  the  Fathers,  especially  Augustine,  whose 
Confessions  he  liked  to  have  at  hand;  he  took  them 
with  him  in  that  ascent  of  Mt.  Ventoux,  which  was  sug- 
gested to  him  by  reading  in  Livy  how  the  King  of  Mace- 
don  ascended  Mt.  Haemas  in  Thrace,  from  which  both  the 
Euxine  and  the  Adriatic  could  be  seen  (Fam.  IV,  i). 
Petrarch,  a  poor  climber,  used  the  difficulties  of  the  as- 
cent to  illustrate  how  hard  is  virtue  to  attain  —  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  had  always  put  mountains  to  this  symbolic  moral 
use !  At  the  top  Petrarch's  thoughts  run  in  the  old  chan- 
nels of  sin  and  concupiscence  as  he  reads  Augustine's  Con- 
fessions. An  odd  place  to  worry  over  concupiscence  and 
read  Augustine ! 

Like  any  scholar,  Petrarch  was  fond  of  quiet  and  soli- 
tude. Replying  sympathetically  (Fam.  IX,  14)  to  an 
ecclesiastic's  letter  praising  the  solitary  life,  and  speaking 
for  himself,  he  declares  it  practically  impossible  to  live 
or  die  well  save  In  solitude  — "  natura  dux  nostra  nos 
solltarlos  fecit."  And  he  is  capable  of  decrying  carnal 
love  and  approving  of  monastic  asceticism.  (Fam.  X, 
3  and  5.)  Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his  reason  for  pre- 
ferring the  solitary  life  is  the  scholar's  reason  simply, 
just  as  he  points  out  in  his  De  Vita  Solitaria,  that  the  oc- 
cupatus  living  in  the  world  is  exposed  to  more  interrup- 
tions and  annoyances  than  the  soUtarius.  The  imaginary 
dialogue  with  Augustine,  which  Petrarch  named  Secretum 
Meum,^  seems  to  discuss  how  man  may  win  his  best  tran- 
quillity. Augustine  searches  into  Petrarch's  faults,  re- 
proves them  gently,  recognizes  his  freedom  at  least  from 
the  sin  of  envy,  points  out  the  incompatibility  of  carnal 
passion  with  man's  best  peace  of  mind,  and  shows  the 
remedy  in  clarity  of  judgment,  unity  of  aim,  and  strength 
of  will  to  follow  it.  Petrarch  sees  the  vanity  of  striv- 
ing after  many  things,  and  has  qualms  as  to  the  classic 
studies  to  which  he  is  addicted  —  so  had  St.  Jerome  and 
many  a  mediaeval  lover  of  the  classics  I 

«  Translated  by  W.  H.  Draper.    Petrarch's  Secret,  &c.     (London,  1911.) 


12  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Petrarch  had  solved  the  last  difficult  problem  by  lead- 
ing the  life  of  a  man  of  letters.  In  this  he  had  found  his 
happiness  and  peace.  And  with  the  practical  wisdom 
with  which  he  had  conducted  his  own  life,  he  writes  to 
his  friend  Boccaccio  w^hen  both  were  grey.  The  latter, 
seized  with  compunctions,  was  proposing  to  abandon  sec- 
ular themes  and  studies,  and  prepare  for  death  somewhat 
more  exclusively  than  he  had  done.  Petrarch  views  the 
situation  fairly:  an  old  scholar  surely  should  not  discard 
the  studies  which  have  been  the  occupation  of  his  life, 
and  are  the  best  solace  for  old  age.  Without  such  need- 
less sacrifice,  he  can  still  prepare  for  death  (Sen.  I,  5). 

So  Petrarch's  attitude  toward  religion  was  that  of  the 
man  of  scholarly  tastes,  not  deeply  religious,  who  dec- 
orously recognized,  and  occasionally  felt,  religion's 
claims.  Somewhat  m.ore  firmly  than  a  man  of  like  tem- 
perament would  have  done  a  century  before,  he  kept  re- 
ligion In  its  proper  place.  He  would  not  have  men  think 
him  either  a  Ciceronian  or  a  Platonist,  but  of  a  surety  a 
Christian.  He  was,  however,  always  ready  to  attack  the 
current  scholasticism,  though,  of  course,  as  a  man  of  an- 
tique letters,  he  must  be  himself  a  follower  of  philosophy. 
"  I  love  philosophy,"  he  says,  "  not  the  loquacious,  scho- 
lastic, windy  brand  .  .  .  but  the  true,  which  lives  in  souls 
rather  than  in  books."  (Fam.  XII,  3.)  One  suspects 
that  he  did  not  know  much  about  what  he  was  condemn- 
ing or  what  he  was  praising.  He  took  from  Cicero  or 
Augustine  the  Idea  of  Plato's  primacy,  and  in  his  De  Ig- 
norantla  "'  conducts  a  moderate  literary  polemic  against 
Aristotle.  Yet  he  professed  to  respect  that  master,  while 
he  despised  his  hair-splitting  so-called  followers.  '^  Vtr 
ardentts  ingenii,"  he  once  called  him.  Nevertheless, 
much  as  he  knew  or  did  not  know  about  it,  Petrarch's 
acute  intelligence  perceived  the  emptiness  of  the  current 
scholasticism.  It  was  also  characteristic  of  him  that  he 
should  take  a  rational  view  of  dreams  (Fam.  V,  7),  see 
the  falsity  of  astrology  (Sen.  Ill,  i)  and  note  the  quack- 
ery in  the  medicine  then  practiced.     Nor  would  he  accept 

7  Ed.  Capelli  (Champion,  Paris,  1906). 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO  13 

Virgil  as  a  magician,  although  Boccaccio  was  inclined  to.^ 
As  a  scholar,  Petrarch  has  rightly  remained  illustrious. 
He  was  not  such  incidentally,  or  in  the  midst  of  other  oc- 
cupations; but  primarily  and  unremittingly  with  his  whole 
bent  of  mind  and  purpose.  Of  course,  he  was  an  ardent 
assembler  of  manuscripts,  the  tools  and  means  of  his  vo- 
cation. He  passionately  desired  to  collect  and  own  them, 
and  have  the  best  and  most  correct.  He  was,  perhaps 
had  to  be,  a  bibliophile  as  well  as  a  scholar,  the  leader  of 
that  multitude  of  ardent  lovers  of  the  classics  who  loved 
to  collect  manuscripts,  and  had  to  be  collectors  in  order 
to  be  students.  Of  course,  one  must  not  think  of  this 
as  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  world,  although  it  was  to 
manifest  itself  on  an  unprecedented  scale.  Through  all 
the  mediaeval  centuries,  scholars  had  been  collectors  of 
their  precious  books.  "  I  am  eagerly  collecting  a  librai*y ; 
and  as  formerly  at  Rome  and  elsewhere  in  Italy,  so  like- 
wise in  Germany  and  Belgium,  I  have  obtained  copyists 
and  manuscripts  with  a  mass  of  money,  and  the  help  of 
friends  in  those  parts.  Permit  me  to  beg  of  you  also  to 
promote  this  end.  We  will  append  at  the  end  of  this 
letter  a  list  of  those  writers  we  wish  copied."  This  ex- 
tract is  not  from  one  of  Petrarch's  letters,  though  he 
wrote  many  like  it;  but  from  a  letter  of  Gerbert  who 
became  Pope  Sylvester  II  in  the  year  999.^ 

But  undoubtedly  Petrarch  marks  a  new  stage  in  the 
study  and  appreciation  of  the  classics.  And  naturally. 
In  a  general  way,  if  allowance  be  made  for  definite  inter- 
ruptions and  catastrophes,  and  different  fields  of  inter- 
est and  effort,  each  mediaeval  century  shows  an  intel- 
lectual advance.  Accordingly,  a  revival  of  classical  study 
in  the  fourteenth  century  would  start  from  a  base  of 
maturer  intelligence  than  in  the  twelfth.  On  the  other 
hand,  being  but  the  great  pioneer  of  the  movement, 
Petrarch's  knowledge  was  less  than  that  of  the  follow- 
ing generations  of  humanists  who  w^ere  stimulated  and 

^  De   Nolhac,   Petrarque   et   V humanism e,   pp.    126-7    (Paris,    Champion, 

^  Ep.  44,  Havet's  Edition.     Gerbert  was  not  single  in  these  tastes  —  see 
The  Mediaeval  Mind,  chaps.  XII  and  XIII. 


14  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

assisted  by  his  labors.  The  chief  gap  In  his  knowledge 
was  his  Ignorance  of  Greek,  which  made  his  perspective 
faulty  and  left  his  ordering  of  classical  authors  still  med- 
iaeval. Says  he  with  comical  sententlousness:  "Plato 
magnus  vir,  magnus  Pythagoras,  magnus  Arlstoteles, 
magnus  Varro  "  (Fam.  XVII,  i).  The  last  had  been  a 
great  figure  In  the  Middle  Ages. 

Within  the  range  of  Its  knowledge,  his  acute  mind  dis- 
criminated justly.  His  Idol  In  prose  was  Cicero;  through 
long  study  and  devotion  he  seemed  to  himself  to  have 
attained  a  personal  Intimacy  with  him.  Yet,  as  It  was 
only  In  middle  life  that  he  found  a  manuscript  of  Clcero^s 
letters,  he  did  not  form  his  own  epistolary  style  on  them. 
In  fact,  Seneca  Influenced  him  as  much  as  Cicero.  One 
may  remark  that  not  only  In  the  Middle  Ages,  but  from 
Petrarch's  time  onward  through  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries,  humanists  took  kindly  to  the  Latin  writ- 
ers of  the  silver  and  even  the  brass  age,  and  when  they 
came  to  know  Greek,  they  preferred  the  later  Greek 
authors.  Some  reasons  for  this  are  clear.  Both  the  late 
Latin  and  late  Greek  writers  were  more  cosmopolitan 
and  easier  to  appreciate  than  their  greater  and  often 
austere  predecessors.  The  Romans  themselves  had  not 
cared  for  Aeschylus  and  Aristophanes,  who,  like  Plato, 
were  distinguished  bv  a  sublime  provincialism.  More 
promiscuous  and  readily  tangible  human  affinities  were 
offered  by  the  Hellenistic  Plutarch.  For  analogous  rea- 
sons, Seneca  was  the  really  popular  moralist,  and  con- 
tinued so  through  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
He  was  closer  to  the  Christian  mood,  and  at  so  many 
points  touched  the  commonplace  nature  of  man.  Thus 
we  may  also  see  why  Petrarch  sought  moral  Instruction 
from  Ovid's  Elegies^  while  he  revered  and  Imitated  Virgil. 

Following  the  examples  of  scholars  before  him, 
whether  living  in  the  fifth  century  or  the  thirteenth, 
Petrarch  took  the  classic  poets  allep^orically.  One  of  his 
later  letters  (Sen.  IV,  k)  has  much  to  sav  of  the  moral 
or  allegorical  Interpretation  of  Virgil,  and  maintains  that 
the  end  and  subject  —  finis  et  subjectum  —  of  the  Aeneid 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        15 

is  the  perfect  man,  or  man  made  perfect  —  vir  perfectus. 
To  discover  an  allegory  in  a  narrative  means  commonly 
to  moralize  the  narrative,  generalize  it  from  a  moral 
point  of  view,  or  generalize  a  lesson  from  it.  Allegory 
is  a  kind  of  generalization.  And  sometimes,  as  we  fol- 
low an  allegorical  interpretation  of  a  story,  for  example 
Petrarch's  interpretation  of  the  Aeneid,  we  perceive  that 
much  of  it  is  but  a  pointing  of  its  "  lesson."  Some  such 
lesson,  or  revelation  of  the  universal  in  the  concrete,  lies 
in  every  great  story.  And  who  shall  say  that  the  poet 
did  not  feel  or  mean  it  too,  at  least  when  he  is  so  thought- 
ful, even  contemplative,  a  writer  as  Virgil?  Is  it  not 
possible  also  that  the  Greek  critics,  who  held  before  Vir- 
gil's day  that  all  great  poetry  should  be  taken  allegori- 
cally  —  is  it  not  possible  that  sometimes  they  may  have 
meant  little  more  than  when  we  say  such  and  such  a  nar- 
ration carries  a  lesson? 

The  trouble  was  that  some  of  those  critics  and  inter- 
preters overelaborated  and  specialized  their  allegorical 
interpretation,  making  it  quite  beside  the  probable  in- 
tention of  the  author,  pointing  it,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Old  Testament,  to  apologetic  uses,  or  making  it  silly  and 
unlikely,  as  in  the  case  of  a  great  poem  like  the  Aeneid.^^ 
Thus  while  Petrarch,  in  his  letters  just  referred  to,  some- 
times says  little  more  than  we  ourselves  might  choose 
to  fancy  as  the  "  lesson  "  of  the  tale,  he  is  also,  like  his 
mediaeval  forbears,  or  the  grammarians  of  the  transi- 
tion centuries,  quite  capable  of  foolishness.  The  Vir- 
gilian  picture  {A en.  IV,  554)  of  Aeneas,  when  all  was 
ready  to  set  sail  from  Carthage,  asleep  on  his  ship,  celsa  in 
puppi,  he  interprets  as  alta  in  mente  certo  proposito  con- 
quiescens  —  or,  so  to  speak,  at  peace  in  his  high  purpose. 
We  do  not  think  that  Virgil  meant  this  by  celsa  in  puppi. 

So  for  Petrarch  all  great  poetry  carries  allegory.  He 
intends  his  own  Latin  poetry  to  be  taken  in  the  same 
way.  He  sends  his  eclogue  Parthenias  to  his  brother,  ex- 
pounding it  allegorically  (Fam.  X,  4).  In  fact,  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  his  eclogues  without  a  key  to  the 

10  See  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Chap.  XXXI.     (Vol.  II,  p.  141-2.) 


i6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

symbolism  of  their  language;  in  one  of  them,  the  Bucoli- 
cum  Carmen,  in  the  person  of  Silvius,  he  explains  to  his 
brother  through  allegories  his  need  to  write  the  Africa}^ 
What  shall  one  say  of  that  supreme  effort  of  Petrarch 
after  immortal  fame?  Few  human  beings  have  read 
it!  ^^  It  seems  to  open  with  heavy  notes  of  egotism  and 
adulation;  there  is  no  epic  plunge  in  medias  res!  As 
one  proceeds,  one  finds  classic  involutions  without  the 
classic  movement.  It  seems  to  go  through  the  motions 
of  the  Aene'id  stylistically;  yet  does  not  move.  With  its 
borrowed  thoughts  and  borrowed  phrases,  not  repro- 
duced in  ipsissimis  verbis^  it  affects  one  as  a  sort  of  pseudo- 
copy. 

One  gathers  from  it  the  way  in  which  Petrarch  sought 
to  form  his  style.  He  advises  not  to  copy  the  words,  but 
rather  to  master  the  classic  thoughts.  He  would  not 
slavishly  imitate  the  phrasing  of  one  writer,  but  avail  of 
the  excellences  of  many:  nee  huius  stilum  aut  illius,  sed 
unum  nostrum  conflatum  ex  pluribus  habeamus.  Not 
everyone  can  learn  to  write  well  by  reading  the  classics; 
he  must  have,  or  gain  through  them,  a  serene  and  well 
equipped  mind:  he  must  be  something,  or  have  become 
something,  in  himself:  "  For  speech  is  no  slight  index 
of  the  mind,  nor  the  mind  a  slight  director  of  speech; 
one  depends  on  the  other."  ^^ 

Many  a  scholar  in  the  generations  and  centuries  before 
Petrarch  had  tried  to  write  as  well  as  possible,  had 
striven  for  style  and  form.  The  vernacular  poetry  of 
the  troubadours  of  Provence  was  mainly  a  thing  of  form; 
and  often  a  mediaeval  Latin  writer  in  the  twelfth  or  thir- 
teenth century  modelled  his  style  quite  consciously  on  the 
classics  or  on  the  approved  writers  of  his  time.  With 
Petrarch,  the  effort  for  style  has  become  portentously 
self-conscious.     He  is  the   forerunner  of  those  gtVitx-x- 

'^'^Poemata  minora  Francisci  Petrarcae,  ed.  Rosetti,    (Milan   1823);   // 
Bucolicum  Carmen,  ed.  Avila   (Padua  1906). 

12  The  present  writer  has  only  read  at  it. 

13  Fam.  I,  7  &  8;  XXIII,  19.  See  his  later  remarks  on  style  in  a  letter 
to  Bruni.     Sen.  II,  3. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        17 

tions  of  Italian  humanists  who  pursued  "  art  for  art's 
sake,"  and  by  striving  utterly  for  form  in  writing,  emptied 
themselves  of  substance.  This  forerunner,  who  himself 
was  not  always  creative,  tried  so  consciously  for  form, 
that  most  of  his  works  have  entered  the  company  of 
those  which  are  not  read,  but  read  about.  His  letters, 
carefully  edited  by  him,  are  Interesting  as  a  record  of  his 
life.  They  may  have  done  much  to  bring  into  vogue 
the  genre  of  epistolary  writing  consisting  of  intimate 
short  self-revealing  letters  or  essays  upon  topics  other 
than  theology  and  politics.  Beyond  them,  and  perhaps 
his  Secretiim,  who  but  a  special  student  reads  Petrarch's 
Latin  works?  In  some  of  them  the  dullness  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  seems  clothed  upon,  as  in  the  De  remediis  utri- 
usque  forttitiae,  where  every  conceivable  good,  and  then 
every  conceivable  111  of  human  life  Is  presented  seriatim, 
with  opposed  or  compensating  considerations. 

The  De  viris  illustribus,^^  a  work  of  greater  rhetorical 
effort,  Is  more  alive  by  reason  of  its  subject,  the  life  his- 
tories of  Roman  worthies.  Its  substance  was  drawn 
from  LIvy,  where  that  was  possible,  or  again  from  Cae- 
sar's Commentaries,  which  Petrarch,  in  common  with 
men  before  and  also  after  him,  ascribed  to  one  Julius 
Celsus.  Petrarch's  principle  of  selection,  as  given  in 
his  preface.  Is  to  use  only  those  matters  which  illustrate 
the  virtues  or  their  contraries;  for  the  fructuosus  finis  of 
historians  Is  to  present  that  which  the  reader  ought  either 
to  follow  or  avoid:  —  which  is  a  way  of  writing  history 
for  the  purpose  of  moral  Improvement,  as  more  than  one 
mediaeval  compiler  had  done.  The  preface  turns  also 
to  posterity,  and  expresses  the  author's  wish  to  be  dear 
to  It.  As  the  work  warms  up  to  the  Important  people, 
it  becomes  good  rhetorical  exposition.  Such  is  the  story 
of  CamlUus;  and  a  long,  Intelligently  composed  biography 
of  Caesar  is  presented. 

It  is  illuminating  to  compare  Petrarch  with  Hildebert 
of  Lavardin  and  John  of  Salisbury,  noteworthy  humanists 

1*  Ed.  Razzolini   (Bologna  1874). 


i8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.^^  The  former, 
who  lived  from  about  1055  to  1130,  ended  his  life  as 
Archbishop  of  Tours.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  lover  of 
the  classic  Latin  literature,  and  the  spell  of  the  antique 
lay  on  him.  Visiting  Rome,  he  wrote  admirable  elegies 
upon  its  ruined  state,  elegies  in  which  the  gods  are  made 
to  marvel  at  the  beauty  of  their  own  sculptured  images. 
The  prose  of  his  letters  was  not  disturbed  by  attempts  at 
a  pseudo-classic  style;  it  has  grace  as  well  as  force.  His 
letters  were  studied  as  models  after  his  death.  John 
of  Salisbury  was  born  about  11 15  and  died  as  Bishop  of 
Chartres  in  1 180.  He  was  the  friend  both  of  Becket  and 
of  Henry  II,  and  in  his  time  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  many 
famous  teachers,  Abelard  for  instance,  as  well  as  Ber- 
nard of  Chartres.  He  gives  a  charming  picture  of  the 
latter's  method  of  teaching.  Always  an  advocate  of  a 
thorough  classical  education,  John  poured  his  sarcasms 
on  those  who  "  preferred  to  seem  rather  than  be,  phi- 
losophers and  professors  of  the  arts,  engaging  to  im.part 
the  whole  of  philosophy  in  less  than  three  years,  or  even 
two."  He  was  quite  at  home  with  the  classic  authors, 
citing  their  lives  as  readily  and  as  appositely  as  he  cited 
Scripture.  A  student  and  clever  historian  of  the  antique 
philosophy,  he  knew  as  much  of  it  as  was  possible  for  a 
man  living  before  the  unearthing  of  Aristotle.  His 
writings  as  well  as  his  personality  were  imbued  with  its 
spirit;  he  applied  its  teachings  in  his  life  and  contempla- 
tion, and  could  look  with  even  eye  on  all  things.  Mod- 
eratrtx  omnium  was  his  favorite  term  for  philosophy. 

According  to  the  present  writer's  taste,  these  men 
wrote  Latin  more  agreeably  than  Petrarch.  Since  they 
were  active  in  affairs  of  Church  and  State,  they  did  not, 
like  him,  follow  letters  exclusively.  Their  writings  do 
not  disclose  such  absorbing  curiosity  as  to  everything 
connected  with  antiquity.  It  would  indeed  be  hard  to 
find  anyone  before  Petrarch  so  completely  devoted  as 
himself  to  the  study  of  the  classics  and  so  consciously 

15  See  chapters  XXXI  and  XXXII  of  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  and  Vol. 
II,  pp.  403  sqq. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        19 

striving  to  be  Intimate  with  antiquity.  Moreover,  while 
these  men  had  a  just  and  true  feeling  for  the  classics, 
they  lived  when  men  knew  less  and  had  experienced  less. 
One  cannot  expect  to  find  them  as  mature  as  he.  The 
clearest  difference  between  them  lay  in  their  intellectual 
environment  and  in  the  immediate  destinies  of  their  re- 
spective epochs,  with  reference  to  the  litterae  humaniores 
of  Rome  and  Greece.  The  twelfth  century  was  the  best 
period  of  mediaeval  Latin  writing,  and  also  one  when 
many  scholars  cared  for  the  classics  and  read  them  dili- 
gently. But  even  then  there  were  men  of  other  minds, 
who  looked  on  Latin  letters  merely  as  a  means  towards 
quite  different  pursuits.  Before  many  decades,  the  domi- 
nant intellectual  interests  of  the  time  moved  away  from 
the  litterae  humaniores  somewhat  more  definitely.  The 
period  of  the  great  and,  on  the  whole,  unliterary  scho- 
lastic philosophers  arrived  —  even  as  our  time  is  the 
period  of  unliterary  science;  and  although  classical  schol- 
ars may  now  know  more  than  their  predecessors  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  nevertheless  interest  in  classical  lit- 
erature is  on  the  wane,  and  the  classics  are  less  generally 
read  and  have  less  effect  upon  educated  men  than  hereto- 
fore. 

But  Petrarch,  in  contrast  with  Hildebert  of  Lavardin 
and  John  of  Salisbury,  lived  at  the  opening  of  an  epoch 
which  was  to  be  Intellectually  characterized  by  a  renewed, 
an  enthusiastic,  a  fashionable,  modish,  almost  universal, 
interest  in  the  classics  as  veritable  fonts  of  humanity. 
He  and  his  labors  and  his  fame  were  borne  onwards  upon 
the  increasing  currents  of  the  coming  time.  Fate  made 
him  a  precious  pioneer.  By  reason  of  his  happy  time- 
liness, the  fame  of  him  and  the  effect  of  him  and  the 
inspiration  of  his  example  were  not  lost. 

Thus  In  his  Latin  studies  and  Latin  writings,  Petrarch 
was  a  spokesman  of  the  coming  time.  But  beyond  his 
classical  virtuosity,  through  his  sonnets  and  Canzoni  in 
Italian,  he  devised  modes  of  sentiment  and  the  forms  of 
their  expression  destined  to  royal  fortunes.  It  was  he 
more  than  any  other  who  set  the  sonnet  fashion  for  the 


20  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

following  centuries,  and  within  the  sonnet  form  gave 
expression  to  those  exquisite  or  precleuse  sentiments  which 
became  conventions  with  the  writers  of  love  poetry  of 
many  nations.  He  was  the  main  source  and  Inspiration 
of  an  enormous  sonnet  literature  In  Italy,  next  In  France, 
and  ultimately  In  England.  As  the  creator  of  these 
forms  of  expression  one  can  find  no  definite  limit  to  his 
influence. 


II 

Boccaccio  was  a  slightly  younger  contemporary,  a  de- 
voted friend,  and  an  humble  but  gifted  admirer  of  Pe- 
trarch. While  his  genius  was  drenched  with  his  im- 
mediate mediaeval  antecedents,  he  went  beyond  or  behind 
them  to  grasp  the  fuller  riches  of  the  antique.  Still 
more  vitally  he  turned  to  the  Instincts  and  capacities 
of  his  own  nature,  and  absorbed  the  living  currents  of  his 
time.  His  personality  and  life  and  labors  brilliantly 
represent  his  time  and  place,  and  with  this  advantage 
over  Petrarch,  that  Boccaccio  w^as  less  self-conscious  and 
quite  free  from  pose.  He  presents  himself  In  his  sym- 
bolical and  mediaeval  elements,  In  his  enthusiastic  study 
of  the  classics,  and  In  the  turning  of  his  genius  to  life 
and  to  the  expression  of  It  in  the  vernacular. 

The  mediaeval  centuries  contained  many  kinds  of  men, 
though  w^e  justifiably  choose  to  see  mainly  the  more  strik- 
ing types.  We  are  interested,  for  instance.  In  the  type 
which  created  chivalrv  and  the  Arthurian  romances,  or 
again  in  those  lines  of  spiritual  energy  which  blended  In 
the  personalities  of  a  St.  Bernard,  an  Aquinas  or  a  Dante. 
Yet  one  remembers  that  if  the  first  part  of  the  Roman  de 
la  Rose  was  written  by  the  exquisite  De  Torris,  the  clever 
and  somewhat  encyclopaedic  second  part  had  for  its  au- 
thor that  De  Meun^  who  has  been  likened  to  Voltaire, 
and  mav  with  equal  justice  be  compared  with  Boccaccio. 
Both  De  Meuns:  and  Boccaccio  employed  the  mediaeval 
machinery  of  presentation,  the  dream,  the  vision,  the 
allegory,  while  both  also  saw  human  nature  along  the. 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        21 

level  of  its  actuality.  Neither  of  them  dwelt  in  the 
machina, —  the  vision  or  the  allegory  —  which  they  con- 
ventionally used. 

That  the  intellectual  conventions  and  primary  mental 
attitudes  of  this  Florentine  were  those  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  the  centuries  immediately  behind  it,  is  evi- 
dent from  his  earlier  works,  which  are  mediaeval  in  sub- 
stance and  in  the  conventions  of  their  construction.  One 
notices  the  mediaevalism  of  that  Vita  di  Dante  in  which 
Boccaccio  expressed  his  admiration  for  the  figure  then 
dominating  literary  Italy.  As  Boccaccio  was  not  mys- 
tically winged,  but  well  equipped  with  human  hands  and 
feet  and  eyes,  he  does  not  cleave  the  empyrean  with  his 
poet,  but  makes  him  walk  the  earthy  levels  of  the  me- 
diaeval meadows,  and  credits  him  with  motives,  romantic, 
pretty,  by  no  means  sublime.  Boccaccio's  own  vocabu- 
lary was  then  full  of  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  Corn- 
media}^  And  at  the  close  of  life,  when  his  last  labor 
was  to  deliver  his  lectures  or  Commento  on  it,  he  adopts 
scholastically  what  probably  was  Dante's  own  explana- 
tion of  his  purpose,  when  considering  a  commentary  upon 
his  own  poem.  The  causes,  says  Boccaccio,  of  the  Corn- 
media,  are  the  material,  the  formal,  the  efficient  and  the 
final.  The  first  of  these,  which  is  to  say  the  subject  of 
the  poem,  is  tvv^ofold,  literal  and  allegorical.  It  is,  "  ac- 
cording to  the  literal  sense,  the  state  of  souls  after  the 
body's  death,  taken  simply  .  .  .  while,  according  to  the 
allegorical  sense,  it  is  how  man,  mounting  or  falling 
through  his  free  will,  is  bound  to  the  justice  which  re- 
wards and  punishes."  So  he  proceeds  with  the  rest,  say- 
ing at  last  that  "  the  final  cause  is  to  help  those  who 
are  living  in  the  present  life,  to  pass  from  a  state  of  mis- 
ery to  one  of  felicity."  ^^  One  may  add,  that  this  ar- 
dent admirer  transferred  to  Dante  himself  the  Dantesque 
and  mediaeval  appellative  of  Aristotle,  calling  him  in  the 
Amorosa  Fisione,  "  il  signor  d'ogni  savere." 

10  E.g.  the  "  infiniti  guai,"  at  the  opening  of  the  Fiammetta,  and  shortly 
after  in  the  lover's  words:     "O  donna,  tu  sola  se'  la  beatudine  nostra." 
1'^  Commento,  Cap.  I  in  Moutier's  Ed.  I,  pp.  3-4. 


22  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

That  Boccaccio's  way  of  handling  the  classics,  and  pre- 
senting their  extracted  substance  in  exhaustive  compila- 
tions, was  still  mediaeval,  may  be  seen  in  his  De  Casibus 
Virorum  Illustrium,  which  shows  the  fatal  turns  of  for- 
tune through  a  line  of  ancient  worthies,  beginning  with 
Adam;  likewise  in  his  De  claris  Mulieribus,  a  companion 
treatise;  and  finally  in  his  vast  Genealogiae  deorum  gen- 
tUium,  in  which  he  endeavors  to  satisfy  his  insatiate  in- 
terest in  mythology.  No  work  of  Petrarch  shows  such 
exhaustive  learning.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  Petrarch  appre- 
ciated the  classics  more  intelligently  than  this  younger 
man  who  equalled  him  in  diligence  of  study  and  in  zeal 
to  extend  the  knowledge  of  them.  There  was  no  more 
eager  searcher  after  manuscripts  than  Boccaccio. 

Theoretically,  Boccaccio  joined  with  his  friend  in  plac- 
ing the  writing  of  Latin  above  Italian  composition.  But, 
in  fact,  more  genially  and  truly  than  Petrarch  he  recog- 
nized the  value  and  dignity  of  the  volgare,  and  accepted  it 
as  a  worthy  vehicle  of  narrative  and  thought,  as  Dante 
fortunately  had  done.  Here  lay  the  true  progress  of 
Boccaccio,  wherein  a  realization  that  the  classics  also 
drew  from  life  may  have  helped  him  on.  Looking  to 
life,  drawing  from  life,  Boccaccio  knew  that  the  volgare 
alone  had  the  living  power  to  depict  it.  In  this  he  was 
not  "  mediaeval  " ;  no  man  is  when  he  goes  straight  to  the 
life  about  him. 

This  great  advance  did  not  come  suddenly,  or  in  Boc- 
caccio's early  years,  when  he  wrote  his  first  poems  in 
the  volgare.  They  and  their  author  were  still  entan- 
gled in  the  acceptance  and  conventional  treatment  of 
conventional  subjects.  It  was  not  so  much  that  the  sub- 
jects were  timeworn,  as  that  his  treatment  of  them  still 
subscribed  to  the  old  notions;  for  there  was  life  and 
beauty  in  the  old  story  of  Flore  and  Blanchfleur,  of 
Trollus  and  Cressid,  or  of  Palamon  and  Arcite.  The 
poems  made  by  Boccaccio  from  these  tales,  the  Filocolo, 
Filostrato,  and  Teseide,  have  still  too  much  rhetoric  and 
convention,  with  too  little  of  life's  closer  observation. 
Imitation  and  the  old  Ideas  enveloped  him  most  appall- 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        23 

ingly  in  his  Amorosa  Visione.  In  form  it  copied,  par- 
odied rather,  the  Divina  Commedia,  and  in  contents  was 
an  encyclopaedic  "  Hall  of  Fame,"  in  which  the  author 
beheld  every  imaginable  person  belonging  to  classical 
and  biblical  antiquity,  or  to  the  mediaeval  time,  and  also 
the  whole  company  of  allegorical  personifications.  The 
enumerating  habit  followed  him.  Even  in  his  prose  Fi- 
animetta,  which  so  aptly  delineated  passion,  he  could  not 
help  letting  Venus  set  before  his  heroine  the  tale  of  all 
the  gods  and  demigods  and  heroes  who  had  been  over- 
come by  love,  as  an  argument  why  she  should  not  resist 
it.     Nor  does  she. 

That  Boccaccio  at  last  should  have  emerged  from  these 
entanglements  to  write  the  Decameron!  Its  opening 
stories  still  carry  conventional  moralizings.  But  as  the 
tales  proceed,  the  author  reaches  an  artistic  freedom  of 
his  own,  and,  drawing  upon  universal  life,  gives  pictures 
of  manifold  humanity.  His  cheerful  and  facile  and 
abundantly  carnal  nature  did  not  rise  to  those  spiritual 
heights  which  may  be  just  as  veritable  as  the  streets  and 
gutters  of  human  life.  But,  with  this  qualification,  the 
wide  actual  world  throngs  through  these  tales,  the  world 
of  men  and  women,  resourceful  lovers,  clever  rogues, 
shameless  villains,  caught  hot  in  their  doings.  Many 
pretty  stories,  and  stories  unabashed,  with  author  and 
audience  ready  to  laugh  at  folly  and  applaud  the  success- 
ful ruse.  Throughout,  cleverness,  quick  faculty,  virtus 
and  prtidentia,  aper^  and  Trtwr^,  to  go  back  through  Rome 
even  to  Homer,  win  life's  prizes  and  applause.  High 
principle,  self-sacrifice,  humility,  gain  scant  attention, 
when  not  laughed  out  of  court.  Boccaccio's  world  has 
passion  and  desire,  but  not  much  heart  or  benevolence. 
It  is  not  malevolent;  but  as  the  author  does  not  let  the 
wish  to  instruct  or  benefit  deflect  his  story,  or  spoil  his 
art,  so  no  one  in  the  tale  is  stayed  from  his  desire  by 
moral  nicety. 

Boccaccio  did  not  invent  many  of  the  tales;  he  drew 
from  books  and  on  the  cloud  of  homeless  stories  float- 
ing through  the  world.     But  his  observation  and  hi^  art 


24  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

made  these  stories  the  amusing  things  they  have  proved 
themselves  to  be  for  half  a  thousand  years.  The  life 
about  him  and  his  quick  selecting  eye  gave  matter  and 
form.  And  then  his  art, —  that  was  a  faculty  which 
sprang  from  the  whole  Boccaccio  and  his  entire  training. 
Was  he  not  courtier,  man  of  the  world,  and  lady's  man 
and  frequent  lover?  And  was  he  not  as  well  a  careful 
writer,  and  a  deep  student  of  the  Latin  classics?  If  he 
felt  that  the  volgare  was  the  tool  of  life,  did  he  not  utterly 
admire  Latin,  and  deem  It  better  in  Itself?  Could  he  not 
use  the  life  which  pulsed  in  the  volgare,  and  yet  mould 
that  energy  to  seemliness,  perhaps  to  the  seemliness  of 
the  Latin  period?  This  was  what  he  did;  nor  did  he 
fail  to  inject  In  It  his  own  apt  sense  of  fitness.  So  he 
built  his  style.  And  In  that  style,  so  apt  If  still  rotund, 
and,  In  Boccaccio's  faculty  of  composition,  so  disciplined, 
so  slowly  won,  lay  the  best  humanistic  progress,  the  best 
which  that  time  or  any  century  after  it  could  gain  from 
the  study  of  the  classics:  to  wit,  discipline,  sense  of  form, 
knowledge  of  literary  effectiveness,  even  a  more  excel- 
lently trained  humanity  directed  toward  self-expression. 

Such  were  to  be  the  results  of  a  broader  and  more  In- 
structed study  of  the  classics.  Yet  the  Italians  seem 
hampered  by  the  constraint  of  the  antique  in  their  own 
natures,  and  by  Its  survival  in  their  customs  and  their 
environment.  It  was  not  the  revival  of  classical  studies 
that  checked  the  Italian  literary  creatlveness.  Rather, 
the  strength  of  the  antique  survival  In  the  Italian  nature 
through  every  mediaeval  century,  had  checked  creatlve- 
ness. The  revival  of  classical  studies  gave  academic  pur- 
pose to  this  hampering  survival.  Italian  scholars,  rather 
more  than  those  of  other  lands,  were  touched  with  the 
ambition  to  write  classic  Latin.  This  absorbing  purpose 
Impeded  the  creative  imagination.  With  such  a  darling 
of  delight  as  Arlosto  the  fling  of  fancy  would  have  Its 
play;  but  many  are  the  names  of  those  Italian  humanists, 
to  whose  zeal  for  the  resurrection  of  the  Greek  as  well 
as  Latin  classics  we  remain  Indebted,  yet  In  whose  own 
Latin    compositions    self-conscious    purpose    ill    supplies 


PETRARCH  AND  BOCCACCIO        25 

the  place  of  life.  A  mediaeval  Latin  writing  might  be 
more  alive  just  because  the  author  used  Latin  as  of  course, 
with  little  stylistic  consciousness. 

Through  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  the 
Italian  cities  had  advanced  In  wealth,  and  In  human  expe- 
rience and  capacity.  Elsewhere,  in  England  for  exam- 
ple, such  development  of  human  faculty  might  take  the 
form  of  sharpened  political  and  theological  insight,  and 
address  itself  to  religious  reform.  But,  in  Italy,  It  nat- 
urally directed  itself  to  studies  relating  to  the  Roman 
past,  which  still  w^as  In  the  blood.  As  the  prime  Italian 
Intellectual  achievement  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies had  been  the  revival  of  the  Roman  Law,  so  now 
in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  the  finer  Intel- 
lectual energies  of  the  land  v/ound  themselves  about  the 
classics.  If  Petrarch  was  the  hierarch  of  these  studies, 
they  were  pursued  by  many  other  men,  in  cities  less  rude, 
more  generally  cultured,  civilized,  urban,  than  the  towns 
across  the  Alps.  Not  without  reason  Petrarch  contrasts 
his  Italy  with  the  Scythian  barbarism  of  the  north,  of 
devastated  France  for  instance,  where  nevertheless  he 
found  upon  his  journey  groups  of  Latin  scholars. 

So,  as  of  course,  the  great  revival,  the  new  florescence 
of  classical  studies  began  in  Italy.  There  it  presents  It- 
self as  an  original  or  indigenous  movement,  which  had 
not  come  over  the  borders  from  another  count^v;  there, 
also,  it  was  a  direct  study  of  the  Latin  and  gradually  the 
Greek  authors,  an  acceptance  of  their  Influence  unmixed 
with  intrusions  from  neighboring  contemporary  peoples. 
This  Italian  humanism  had  thus  the  purity  and  originality 
belonging  to  priority.  But  in  France,  England,  Ger- 
many, so  many  suggestions  came  from  Italy  that  there 
was  always  a  foreign  contemporary  flavor  or  suggestion 
mingling  with  the  study  of  the  classic  writings.  What- 
ever came  from  Italy,  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, was  almost  as  that  which  was  taken  from  the 
classic  literature  of  Rome. 


CHAPTER  II 

ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  OF  THE  EARLY  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

Undoubtedly  the  general  culture  of  the  Middle  Ages 
rested  upon  material  conditions.  The  life  of  court  and 
camp  and  town  and  castle,  with  the  delectable  productions 
of  poets,  church-builders,  sculptors,  artists  in  glass,  was 
supported  by  the  economic  situation,  if  not  part  of  it. 
Monks  in  monasteries  and  the  student  hordes  thronging 
the  universities  were  fed  and  clothed,  and  many  of  their 
intellectual  needs  ministered  to,  through  the  same  sup- 
porting wealth.  Nevertheless,  the  finest  flowering  of  the 
mediaeval  spirit  ignored  bodily  well-being,  even  ascet- 
ically  deprecated  it.  But  in  the  coming  time,  the  forms 
of  intellectual  achievement  and  the  Protestant  religious 
movement  frankly  made  much  of  bodily  well-being,  and 
hung  upon  the  increase  of  wealth  and  material  civiliza- 
tion. 

Starting  with  any  mediaeval  century,  the  twelfth  for 
instance,  one  may  observe  how  the  factors  in  the  increase 
of  wealth  were  identical  with  the  means  or  conditions  of 
expansion  of  the  human  mind.  Mental  and  material 
elements  acted  upon  each  other  reciprocally,  now  appear- 
ing as  result  and  again  as  cause.  Intellectual  develop- 
ment produced  discoveries  and  alternately  sprang  from 
them:  discoveries  in  jchowledge,  discoveries  of  mechani- 
cal contrivances  like  the  compass;  discoveries  regarding 
building,  sculpture,  painting,  the  weaving  of  textile  fab- 
rics; relating  to  commerce  and  the  routes  of  commerce, 
to  the  extension  of  the  knowledge  of  the  earth's  surface 
through  exploration  of  hitherto  unknown  lands  and  seas. 
All  this  had  as  much  to  do  with  the  improvement  of  man's 
physical  well-being  as  with  the  enlargement  of  his  mind. 
The  maritime  discoveries  afford  the  most  picturesque  illus- 
tration.    From  the  time  of  the  Scandinavian  and  Norman 

?6 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  27 

voyages,  from  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  from  the  time 
of  the  Genoese  and  Portuguese  explorations  of  the  west 
coast  of  Africa,  to  that  of  the  gradually  led  up  to  and 
grandly  accomplished  voyages  of  Columbus  and  Vasco 
da  Gama,  the  course  of  maritime  exploration  is  con- 
nected with  the  Intellectual  development  of  Europe,  and 
on  the  other  hand  becomes  the  mightiest  of  factors  in 
that  Increase  In  wealth  which  amounted  to  an  economic 
revolution.  During  the  sixteenth  century,  the  money  sup- 
ply in  Europe  would  seem  to  have  been  quadrupled;  and 
the  increase  of  gold  and  silver  was  matched  by  the  expan- 
sion of  the  mental  horizon. 

A  realization  of  the  growth  of  wealth  and  luxury  In 
Italy  and  Spain  and  France,  not  to  mention  England  and 
Germany,  Is  needed  for  any  proper  view  of  the  intel- 
lectual progress  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
Humanism,  the  study  of  the  classics,  while  not  neces- 
sarily a  thing  of  luxury  and  ease,  will  be  seen  to  have 
advanced  with  the  luxurious  adornment  of  life,  made 
possible  through  wealth.  The  prosperity  of  the  Italian 
cities  In  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  was  the 
foundation  of  the  brilliant  life  and  culture  of  the  fifteenth, 
and  the  necessary  basis  for  the  subsequent  progress  of 
humanism,  science,  and  philosophy.  Support  from 
wealthy  patrons,  dynasts,  tyrants,  successful  condlttlerl, 
enabled  the  humanists  to  prosecute  their  studies,  or  gave 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  opportunity  for  observation  and  ex- 
periment. The  famous  arsenal  at  Venice,  with  its  store 
of  costly  machines,  proved  full  of  teaching  for  him,  as  It 
did  for  Galileo. 

One  recalls  the  industrial  growth  of  Florence.  Her 
wars  and  treaties  had  been  inspired  by  her  industrial  and 
commercial  needs,  the  need,  for  instance,  of  a  sea-port, 
which  was  not  satisfied  till  Pisa  was  captured  in  1406. 
A  quick  commercial  expansion  resulted.  Before  then, 
however,  Industrious  and  Intriguing  Florence  traded  vig- 
orously with  Bruges  and  the  west  of  Europe,  as  well  as 
with  the  near  and  further  Orient.  She  had  given  atten- 
tion to  navigation,  and  to  astronomy  and  other  sciences 


28  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

useful  in  commerce  and  manufacture.  The  woolen  in- 
dustry was  well  developed.  Two  of  her  Arli  maggioriy 
(the  greater  Guilds)  were  engaged  in  the  finishing  of 
foreign  woolens  and  the  making  of  the  cloth  itself. 
When  English  and  Flemish  competition  impaired  this 
lucrative  business,  the  manufacture  of  silk  was  profitably 
taken  up.  Lawyers  too,  and  money-changers  who  be- 
came great  bankers,  assisted  in  the  ordering  and  exten- 
sion of  her  industry  and  commerce.  The  city  continued 
dominantly  Guelf,  and  with  reason,  since  great  gain  and 
the  control  of  Italian  finance  came  to  the  Florentines  as 
Bankers  to  the  Holy  See.-^ 

So,  for  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  in  western 
Europe,  one  sees  how  closely  allied  were  the  expansion 
of  the  mental  vision  and  the  increase  of  wealth  and  ma- 
terial civilization.  But  regarding  this  expansion  of  the 
mind  and  the  varied  advance  of  thought  and  knowledge, 
we  meet  again  the  question  of  the  causal  antecedence  of 
one  phase  of  intellectual  progress,  with  respect  to  other 
phases  possibly  to  be  regarded  as  effects.  The  apparent 
stimulus  came  from  the  antique  letters,  including  antique 
philosophy  and  political  enlightenment.  Yet  in  a  way, 
these  had  been  there  always,  and  the  palm  of  prece- 
dence might  just  as  well  be  awarded  to  the  advancing 
humanity  which,  with  increasing  intellectual  capacity, 
turned  to  them  for  illumination. 

Thus  a  questionable  priority  resolves  itself  into  a  more 
likely  cooperation.  Nevertheless,  the  intellectual  prog- 
ress of  these  centuries  seems  to  begin  with  a  renewed 
study  of  the  classic  literature.  This  led  to  a  more  varied 
philosophy,  and  even  facilitated  the  advance  of  science. 
Hence  a  survey  of  the  period's  intellectual  accomplish- 
ment properly  begins  with  that  revival  of  classic  studies 
which  has  come  to  us  as  inaugurated  by  Petrarch  and 
Boccaccio. 

One  need  not  retell  the  story  of  this  revival  of  an- 
tique letters,  which  has  been  told  so  often,  and  with  such 

1  Cf,  p.  Villari,  /  primi  due  secoli  delta  stor'ia  di  Firenze,  chap.  VI, 
(Revised  Ed.  Florence  1905). 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  29 

charm  and  pleasurable  excitement.  Yet  some  of  Its  more 
illustrative  and  personal  Incidents  or  phases  may  be 
given,  and  not  too  briefly,  for  the  subject  is  beguiling. 
One  passes  quite  naturally  from  Petrarch  to  the  younger 
generation  of  his  followers  and  admirers.  These,  with 
their  pupils,  Included  the  majority  of  noted  humanists 
flourishing  In  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Pe- 
trarch had  never  made  his  home  in  Florence;  but  most 
of  Boccaccio's  life  was  passed  either  there  or  in  the 
neighboring  village  of  Certaldo.  And,  before  long, 
Florence,  chiefly  through  the  energies  and  tastes  of  its 
citizens,  became  the  centre  of  the  classical  revival,  and 
one  may  say,  of  the  new  Intellectual  eagerness  Inspiring 
or  accompanying  It.  The  city's  prosperity  under  the 
rule  of  an  aristocracy  of  wealth,  during  the  half  cen- 
tury or  more  following  Boccaccio's  death,  led  to  the  same 
end.  That  the  rich  Florentines  were  keenly  interested 
in  the  Latin  classics,  as  well  as  in  Christian  scholarship 
and  Italian  literature,  appears  from  an  account,  true 
enough  If  actually  fictitious,  of  the  conv^ersatlon  of  a 
distinguished  company  assembled  at  the  villa  of  the  mer- 
chant prince,  Antonio  de^li  Albertl.^  There  Is  costly 
food  and  wine,  there  Is  music;  stories  are  told,  frequently 
ending  In  pleasant  riddles;  philosophy  is  discussed  and 
AujTustlne;  Ovid  and  Lh^,  and  the  origins  of  Florence 
and  Prato;  also  Dante  and  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio;  the 
greatness  of  these  men  and  the  richness  and  worth  of  the 
voltjare  find  staunch  supporters. 

The  finer  Florentine  spirits  were  constantly  meeting 
for  the  serious  pleasures  of  study  and  discussion  before 
the  fourteenth  century  had  closed.  Among  them  the 
name  of  LuI?I  de  Marslp;ll  should  not  be  forgotten,  nor 
will  that  of  Coluccio  Salutato.  Both  of  them  had  "  as- 
sisted "  at  the  storied  conversazione.  The  voluminous 
correspondence  of  the  latter  ^  brings  the  man  and  his 
thoui^hts  before  us,  and  afl^ords  an  enlightening  picture  of 
a  deeply  respected  Florentine  official  and  meritorious  hu- 

2  //  Paradiso  degli  Albert:,  ed.  A.  Wesselofsk}^  3  vols.       (Bologna,  1867). 
^  Epistolario  di  Coluccio  Saluiati,  Ed.  Fr.  Novati  (4  vols.,  1891  sqq.). 


30  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

manist  of  the  generation  immediately  following  Petrarch. 

Born  in  1330,  Salutato  was  some  twenty-five  years 
younger  than  his  pole-star  of  a  poet.  Educated  princi- 
pally at  Bologna,  he  fitted  himself  there  for  the  busi- 
ness of  a  notary.  He  had  even  then  heard  of  Petrarch, 
had  sent  him  verses,  and  had  received  a  little  golden  let- 
ter in  return.  Afterwards  he  moved  about  through  va- 
rious cities,  and  gained  experience  as  a  scribe  in  the  papal 
Curia.  He  was  forty  years  old  when  he  came  to  Flor- 
ence. For  a  while  he  acted  as  secretary  to  the  Priori, 
and  in  1375  was  made  Cancellarius,  or,  as  one  might  say. 
Secretary  of  the  Republic.  Until  his  death  thirty  years 
later,  he  filled  this  office,  enhancing  both  its  dignity  and 
his  own  repute  through  his  abilities  and  uprightness.  He 
was  a  man  of  presence,  somewhat  austere  in  manner,  but 
of  deep,  controlled  affections.  All  Italy  regarded  him 
highly;  and  his  official  papers,  which  everywhere  were 
preserved  as  models,  efficiently  upheld  the  Republic's 
policy  and  fortunes  in  times  of  stress  and  conflict  with- 
the  papacy.  His  honor  never  was  impeached,  and  hav- 
ing trained  a  family  of  noble  sons,  he  left  them  no  ill 
gotten  gains.  He  was  given  a  public  funeral,  and 
crowned  with  laurel  in  his  cofl^n  as  a  poet.  He  had  com- 
posed poems  enough;  yet  their  merits  scarcely  won  for 
him  this  crown,  but  rather  his  public  services  and  his 
reputation  as  a  humanist. 

One  marks  his  boundless  admiration  for  Petrarch,  his 
pietas  toward  him.  The  poet  was  dead;  the  world  of 
scholarly  taste  was  agog  to  know  about  his  Africa  — 
had  he  destroyed  it,  as  he  had  threatened,  or  had  he  left 
directions  for  its  destruction,  as  Virgil  had  ordered  the 
destruction  of  the  Aeneid?  No !  the  "  divine  Africa  " 
still  existed,  for  the  joy  and  solace  of  mankind.  After 
urgent  efforts,  it  was  copied  and  brought  to  Florence, 
where  the  new-made  humanistic  Cancellarius  set  himself 
reverently  to  expunge  such  harsh  expressions  as  the  poet 
himself  would  have  remedied,  had  he  lived  to  perfect  his 
work. 

At  the  news  of  Petrarch's  death,  Salutato  had  added 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  31 

a  postscript  to  a  letter  he  was  writing:  "  I  have  heard, 
woe  is  me  I  that  our  Petrarch  has  migrated  to  his  stars." 
He  soon  begins  to  write  more  at  length  about  him;  for 
instance,  to  the  Count  of  BattifoUe,  somewhat  as  fol- 
lows :  Since  Petrarch  lived  enough  for  nature  and  glory, 
there  was  nothing  more  for  him  to  enjoy  among  mortals, 
but  only  to  say  with  the  Doctor  to  the  Gentiles,  "  I  de- 
sire to  be  dissolved  and  be  with  Christ."  He  excelled  all 
in  wisdom  and  learning,  and  in  his  matchless  eloquentia, 
the  eloquendi  factiltas,  "  from  which  either  prose  melody 
(prosaica  melodia)  pours  forth  with  loosened  reins,  or 
is  constrained  by  the  continuous  straits  of  metres."  Di- 
viding prose  into  that  which  serves  debate  and  that 
which  serves  instruction  {contentio  and  sermocinatio^  a 
division  in  mediaeval  use),  the  letter  maintains  that 
Petrarch  in  his  "Invective  against  a  physician,"  surpassed 
the  Philippics  and  Catiline  orations  of  Cicero.  "  Be- 
lieve me,  though  someone  should  contend  that  Cicero  was 
his  equal  in  oratorical  power,  yet  in  the  adornment  of 
speech  and  weight  of  meaning  .  .  .  without  any  doubt 
it  would  be  admitted  that  the  parent  of  Roman  eloquence 
was  conquered  by  this  one  of  ours."  Cicero  excelled 
only  in  the  one  form  of  eloquentia,  and  Virgil  in  the  other : 
Petrarch,  who  achieved  so  gloriously  in  both,  is  to  be  set 
before  either  of  them.  And  if  Greece  should  insolently 
compare  herself  with  Latium,  we  still  have  Petrarch  to 
set  above  them.  Besides  there  are  his  poems  in  the  vol- 
gare,  in  which  it  is  acknowledged  that  he  excelled  Dante.* 
All  hail !  consummate  man  —  summe  vir,  cui  etiam  se 
tota  equare  non  potest  antiquitas !  "  ^ 

Such  epistolary  rhetoric  reveals  the  writer's  mentality. 
Salutato  could  worship  many  gods,  though  for  the  time 
one  of  them  should  fill  his  vision.  Later  he  writes  in 
praise  of  Virgil,  saying:  "  Placet  mihi  stilus,  quem  hac- 
tenus  nemo  versibus  adequavit,  nee  putem  posse  ad  eius 
altitudinem  atque  dulcedinem  humanis  viribus  pervenire." 

*  Probably  this  was  not  Salutato's  more  considered  opinion.  In  Lib. 
XI,  lo,  he  says  at  great  length  that  there  is  nothing  greater  than  the 
Commedia. 

^  Epistolario,  Lib.  Ill,  Ep.  13  and  15. 


32  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Yet  still  later,  in  1379,  when  Petrarch  had  been  dead  for 
five  years,  he  arp^ues,  lengthily  as  was  his  wont,  that 
Petrarch  is  superior  to  VirgilTand  in  prose  the  equal  of 
Cicero.^ 

If  Salutato  appears  stupid,  Bruni  and  Poggio  were 
among  his  proteges.  The  latter  could  not  endure  that 
his  venerable  friend  and  benefactor  should  put  Petrarch 
above  Cicero  and  Virgil;  and  the  aged  Salutato  writes  to 
defend  his  views.  You  seem  to  hold,  says  he,  that  no 
modern  can  be  compared  with  the  ancients.  That  is 
easy  to  answer.  But  first  one  should  consider  the  Chris- 
tians, Origen,  Chrysostom,  Jerome,  and  Augustine,  the 
best  of  all.  Would  you  set  Plato  or  Aristotle  or  Cicero 
or  Virgil  above  Augustine?  And  surely,  the  Latins  were 
superior  to  the  Greeks.'^ 

Such  crude  comparisons,  and  the  conviction  of  the  su- 
periority of  Latin  over  Greek,  of  which  Salutato  knew 
next  to  nothing,  were  not  common  in  the  next  generation. 
The  letter  last  referred  to  is  so  long  and  tedious  that 
one  loses  any  likely  thread  of  argument.  In  it  Salutato 
distinguishes  between  sapientia  and  eloquentia,  and  ar- 
gues that  Aristotle,  Plato,  and  all  the  Gentiles  were  neces- 
sarily inferior  in  sapientia  to  the  Christians,  and  there- 
fore inferior  to  Petrarch.  And  if  they  failed  in  sa- 
pientia,  their  eloquentia  was  vain.  He  expresses  his 
agreement  with  Cicero  that  writing  should  progress  from 
age  to  age,  and  correspond  with  speech  and  customs. 
And,  returning  to  his  comparisons,  he  intimates  that  in 
putting  Petrarch  before  Cicero  and  Virgil,  he  really 
meant  that  Petrarch  excelled  Cicero  in  verse  and  Virgil 
in  prose ! 

Through  a  small  hole,  the  old  man  emerges  to  this 
ridiculous  conclusion.  Was  he  failing  mentally,  or  just 
involved  in  stupid  mental  habits?  He  does  not  seem 
foolish  when,  in  a  still  later  letter,  he  says  that  we  should 
not  slavishly  imitate  the  ancients.  But  his  head  is  full 
of  them;  sometimes  they  mould  his  own  mood  or  seem- 

6Ep.  Lib.  IV,  15  and  20. 

7  Ep.  Lib.  XIV,  18.  Dec.  1405. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  33 

ingly  living  thoughts,  or  again  they  are  as  names  which 
he  keeps  waving  in  his  letters.  He  can  argue  as  to  the 
authorship  of  the  tragedies  ascribed  to  Seneca,  with  bet- 
ter knowledge  and  acumen  than  could  have  been  found, 
say,  before  Petrarch,  and  can  show  a  real  appreciation 
of  Cicero's  character  drawn  from  his  letters;  and  he 
wrote  frequently  upon  questions  of  textual  interpretation. 
But  his  critical  knowledge  was  so  incomplete  that  appar- 
ently he  took  no  exception  to  the  statements  of  "  Dares  " 
and  "  Dyctys,"  in  their  wretched  Trojan  forgeries,  which 
the  Middle  Ages  also  had  followed.  Nor  does  he  feel  the 
absurdity  of  his  long  epistle  combatting  the  charge  that 
Aeneas  was  not  the  legitimate  son  of  Venus.^  He  is 
ready  with  the  string  of  names  that  so  long  had  served 
as  band-horses.  He  consoles  a  young  Count  for  the 
death  of  a  father  whose  writing  and  speech  redolebat  of 
the  streams  of  Cicero,  the  polntedness  of  Qulntllian,  the 
vehemence  of  Demosthenes.  He  would  have  the  young 
man  lift  up  his  heart;  —  how  are  our  minds  inflamed  for 
virtue  in  thinking  on  the  "  Claudios,  Fabricios,  Curios, 
Catones,  Fablos,  Metellos,  Sclpiones,  Decios,  Lucullos  et 
ceteros."  And  writing  to  a  prominent  citizen  of  Lucca, 
he  finds  him  not  Inferior  to  Brutus  in  one  respect,  nor  to 
Manlius  In  another,  nor  to  Camlllus  In  a  third.  Coluc- 
clo  knew  himself  and  the  compass  of  his  mind,  when  he 
wrote  to  Cardinal  OrsinI,  urging  the  reading  of  the  good 
old  ancients;  for  we  Invent  nothing  new,  and  are  but 
patchers  of  antique  apparel.^ 

Though  naturally  maintaining  that  zeal  for  sacred 
studies  did  not  call  for  the  banishment  of  the  pagan 
poets,  Salutato  was  not  a  pagan,  but  a  serious  person,  who 
liked  to  discuss  free  will  and  predestination.  He  was  a 
man  of  piety,  distinctly  recognizing  how  fraught  with 
dangers  were  the  praise  and  glory  of  this  world.  It  was 
natural  that  Greeks  and  Romans  should  have  delighted 
"  ardently  In  the  extlngulshable  light  of  glory,  and  have 
found  It  dulcissimum  pro   gloria   morl.      But  be   it   far 

8  lb.  V,  18;  VIII,  7;  X,  9  and  12;  XII,  21. 

9  lb.   II,    18;    III,    17;    VI,   4. 


34  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

from  me,  a  Christian  man,  to  glory  in  knowledge  which 
puffeth  up,  or  in  anything  save  the  Mediator  of  God  and 
men."  And  in  the  following  letter  which  is  an  argument 
for  the  use  of  tu  instead  of  vos  when  addressing  a  single 
person,  he  says  "  we  are  born  for  glory,  eternal  glory, 
not  the  fragile  and  fleeting  glory  of  the  world."  ^"^ 

In  sundry  letters,  written  to  console  Andrea  de  Volterra 
for  the  death  of  his  sons,  the  antique  temper  supports 
Christian  sentiments  and  convictions.  These  letters  were 
less  completely  pagan  than  one  written  in  the  early  twelfth 
century  by  Bishop  Hildebert  to  Henry  I  of  England  on 
the  drowning  of  his  son.^^  Salutato  borrows  thoughts 
which  Scipio  and  Laelius  might  express  concerning  friend- 
ship, and  blows  them  up  to  a  thin  flame.  Yet,  beneath 
these  quasi-aflectations,  classic  sentiment  had  entered  and 
disciplined  his  nature. 

Although  this  worthy  man  affected  to  set  Latin  above 
Greek,  no  one  did  more  to  bring  to  Florence  the  Greek 
language  and  literature,  in  the  person  of  the  excellent 
Chrysoloras,^^  a  Byzantine  of  quite  another  class  from 
the  charlatans  who  had  imposed  on  Boccaccio.  He  was 
ever  quick  and  generous  in  aiding  the  cause  of  letters; 
and,  in  his  old  age,  was  like  a  father  to  Bruni  and  Poggio, 
who  then  enter  his  life  and  correspondence.  The  fif- 
teenth epistle  of  Liber  XIV  (Aug.  1405)  to  Pope  Inno- 
cent VII,  is  a  hearty  and  ornate  recommendation  of 
Bruni  for  the  post  of  Apostolic  secretary;  and  the  same 
Liber  contains  many  letters  to  the  young  Poggio,  affec- 
tionate and  filled  with  good  advice.  Poggio  as  well  as 
Bruni  called  him  "father  and  teacher";  and  a  picture 
of  the  old  man  is  given  in  Bruni's  ^^  Lihellus  de  Disputa- 
tioniim  etc.  iisu,^'  ^^  written  in  1401,  when  the  author  was 
about  thirty. 

This  little  book  enlightens  us  as  to  the  change  which 

10  lb.  IV,  i8;  VII,  17;  VIII,  10  and  11. 

"VIII,  17,  18,  19,  cf.  XI,  8.  See  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  II,  p.  173.  In 
Lib.  IX,  9,  Salutato  mentions  Hildebert,  Abelard,  St.  Bernard  and  other 
mediaeval  worthies,   as  good  letter  writers. 

12  Lib.  IX,  14  (1406)  formally  invites  him  to  Florence  at  a  salary. 

13  Printed  in  T.  Klette,  Beitrdge  zur  Ges.  und  Lit.  der  Italienischen 
Gelehrtenrenaissance,  (Greifswald  1888). 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  35 

had  come  over  the  younger  generation  of  scholars.  It 
opens  with  the  friends,  BrunI,  Nlccolo  and  de  Rossi,  going 
to  see  the  venerable  man,  just  as  Scipio  and  Laelius  go  to 
see  the  aged  Cato  in  Cicero's  de  Senectute.  The  nominal 
subject  of  their  talk  is  the  value  of  discussion  of  literary 
themes.  Nlccolo  opens  with  a  harsh  note:  "I  fail  to 
see,  Coluccio,  how  In  these  dregs  of  time  (in  hac  faece 
temporum,  a  common  humanistic  phrase)  and  In  this  great 
dearth  of  books,  anyone  can  acquire  the  faculty  of  dis- 
cussing." Our  ancestors,  he  continued,  preserv^ed  Cassl- 
odorus,  and  suffered  Cicero  to  perish.  Then,  assailing 
the  ignorant  present-day  followers  of  Aristotle,  he  de- 
plores the  condition  of  philosophy,  dialectic,  grammar, 
and  rhetoric. 

Salutato  is  less  Dessimlstic:  If  we  have  lost  much,  much 
is  left;  and  consider  the  pre-excellence  of  Dante,  Pe- 
trarch, and  Boccaccio.  Nlccolo  will  not  hear  of  praising 
them,  whom  the  crowd  praises.  Dante  showed  his  ig- 
norance In  giving  a  white  beard  to  Cato,  who  died  at  the 
age  of  forty-eight;  and  his  treatment  of  Brutus  was  very 
bad.  He  should  be  left  out  of  any  "  concilium  littera- 
torum."  As  for  Petrarch,  his  long  looked  for  Africa  was 
born  a  "  ridlculus  mus  " ;  his  friends  were  sick  of  It:  It 
was  a  poor  performance.  Enough  could  be  said  against 
Boccaccio  too. 

Smilincr  as  was  his  wont,  Salutato  nostnones  the  defense 
of  these  men  to  the  next  day,  when  the  friends  meet  acraln 
at  his  house.  The  task  of  defense  Is  laid  on  BrunI:  but 
Nlccolo  savs  that  he  had  snoken  as  he  had  onlv  to  hear 
what  Salutato  would  snv:  In  fact  he  admires  them  all, 
and  be  Proceeds  to  prai«^e  earh  in  turn,  but  stands  to  It 
that  he  does  not  care  for  the  Africa  or  Pett-nrch's  Buco^irs. 

These  voung^er  men  had  thrown  ofF  the  Petrarch  snell,^* 
nnd  had  discarded  certain  of  Salutato'?  stunid  notions. 
Thev  knew  more:  some  of  them  knew  Greek,  and  had 

14  After  writinp'  f^e  lives  of  Dante  anH  Petrr^rrh.  Bnini  rompar*^'?  tbp 
two.  He  speaks  of  Petrarch's  greater  facr1<^v  of  keer^'ne:  the  fri°nd?hin  of 
princes,  and  f'omm'"^<-s  ♦hrs:  "  T^  ce''*o  il  -^--ivere  in  T<^v"*^-^'^'^'^^e  "''  in 
vita  onorato  da  tutti  i  Sisrnori  e  Popoli,  non  fu  senza  gradissima  virtu,  e 
sapienza  e  costanza."     This  was  written  about  1436. 


36  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

read  Greek  authors.  They  had  thus  gained  a  better  per- 
spective. They  wrote  easier  Latin  than  Salutato  or 
Boccaccio  or  Petrarch.  They  and  their  generation  were 
eagerly  engaged  In  the  search  for  manuscripts,  and  their 
efforts  were  rewarded. ^^ 

Florence  was  still  the  hearth  and  home  of  humanists; 
and  It  w^as  of  lasting  Import  for  the  cause  of  learning  that 
Chrysoloras  came  there  to  lecture.  We  turn  to  Brunl's 
story  of  the  call  he  felt  to  study  Greek,  told  In  his  History 
of  his  own  times  in  Italy}^  The  closing  years  of  the 
fourteenth  century  are  referred  to : 

"  Then  first  came  a  knowledge  of  Greek,  which  had  not  been 
in  use  among  us  for  seven  hundred  years.  Chrysoloras  the  Byzan- 
tine, a  man  of  noble  birth  and  well  versed  in  Greek  letters,  brought 
Greek  learning  to  us.  When  his  country  was  invaded  by  the 
Turks,  he  came  by  sea,  first  to  Venice.  The  report  of  him  soon 
spread,  and  he  was  cordially  invited  and  besought  and  promised  a 
public  stipend,  to  come  to  Florence  and  open  his  store  of  riches 
to  the  youth.  I  was  then  studying  Civil  Law,  but  ...  I  burned 
with  love  of  academic  studies,  and  had  spent  no  little  pains  on 
dialectic  and  rhetoric.  At  the  coming  of  Chrysoloras  I  was  torn 
in  mind,  deeming  it  shameful  to  desert  the  law,  and  yet  a  crime  to 
lose  such  a  chance  of  studying  Greek  literature;  and  often  with 
youthful  impulse  I  would  say  to  myself:  'Thou,  when  it  is  per- 
mitted thee  to  gaze  on  Homer,  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  and  the 
other  poets,  philosophers,  orators,  of  whom  such  glorious  things 
are  spread  abroad,  and  speak  with  them  and  be  instructed  in  their 
admirable  teaching,  wilt  thou  desert  and  rob  thyself?  Wilt  thou 
neglect  this  opportunity  so  divinely  offered?  For  seven  hundred 
years,  no  one  in  Italy  has  possessed  Greek  letters;  and  yet  we  con- 
fess that  all  knowledge  is  derived  from  them.  How  great  ad- 
vantage to  your  knowledge,  enhancement  of  your  fame,  increase  of 
your  pleasure,  will  come  from  an  understanding  of  this  tongue? 
There  are  doctors  of  civil  law  ever^-where ;  and  the  chance  of 
learning  will  not  fail  thee.  But  if  this  one  and  onlv  doctor  of 
Greek  letters  disappears,  no  one  can  be  found  to  tench  thee.  Over- 
come at  length  by  these  reasons,  I  gave  myself  to  Chrysoloras,  with 

15  The  exciting  story  of  the  search  and  rescne  of  manuscripts  of  the 
classics  is  told  bv  J.  A.  Svmonds  in  his  "Revival  of  Learning,"  and  more 
circumstantially  in  G.  Voigt's  Wiedf^rhehhun^  des  Klass'tschen  AUerthnm's. 

^^  Commentarius  reriim  stio  tempore  in  Italia  ^estarnm,  by  Leonardus 
Aretinus  (of  Arezzo)  called  Bruni :  Muratori,  Srript.  T.  19,  pp.  014  sqq. 
Bruni  was  born  about  1370  and  died  in  144.4.  The  passage  quoted  begins 
on  page  920  of  Muratori. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  37 

such  zeal  to  learn,  that  what  through  the  wakeful  day  I  gathered, 
I  followed  after  in  the  night,  even  when  asleep." 

BrunI  gives  the  names  of  fellow  students,  who  studied 
Greek  with  more  or  less  pertinacity  and  success.  Some 
of  them  were  to  be  noted  humanists;  but  none  of  them 
was  as  good  a  Greek  scholar,  or  did  as  much  with  his 
knowledge  of  Gr  ^ek,  as  Bruni  himself.  The  fame  of 
Greek,  even  the  enthusiasm  for  it,  was  spreading  among 
Italian  students  of  the  humanities;  but  its  study  presented 
more  difficulties  than  opportunities;  and  through  the  first 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  more  humanists  talked 
about  Greek  than  seriously  attempted  to  acquire  it.  Of 
those  who  did,  not  a  few  were  discouraged  by  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  script  and  language,  and  the  lack  of  com- 
petent teachers  and  manuscripts.  Bruni  himself  col- 
lected Greek  manuscripts,  as  he  had  to  in  order  to  pur- 
sue his  studies;  but  he  never  carried  his  search  into  the 
East.  It  was  Giovanni  Aurispa  who  returned  from 
Constantinople  to  Venice  in  1423,  with  a  grand  load  of 
manuscripts;  and  a  few  years  after  him,  Filelfo,  of  many- 
sided  repute,  brought  not  a  few,  and  did  much  to  advance 
the  study  of  Greek  literature  in  Italy.  If  the  renewed 
study  of  the  Latin  Classics,  with  the  unearthing  of  new 
manuscripts,  proceeded  with  zeal  and  pleasurable  excite- 
ment, and  became  the  darling  pursuit  of  many  a  man  of 
wealth,  one  may  imagine  the  expectation  aroused  at  the 
prospect  of  a  new  and  greater  world  of  Greek  literature; 
an  expectation  which  was  not  to  be  disappointed. 

So,  in  Bruni's  time,  an  acquaintance  with  Greek  was 
hardly  more  common  in  Italy  than  a  knowledge  of  San- 
scrit is  at  present  in  America.  The  difference  was  in  the 
hope  of  enlightenment,  which  no  one  expects  from  San- 
scrit, but  which  those  men  of  the  fifteenth  century  fer- 
vently looked  for  from  the  Greek  gospel  of  knowledge. 
Of  course,  all  knowledge  of  the  language,  even  that  pos- 
sessed by  the  very  facile  Bruni,  was  imperfect,  and  his 
translations  faulty.  But  his  accomplishment  was  extraor- 
dinary, and  the  spirit  of  his  labors  admirable.     He  trans- 


38  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

lated  many  of  Plutarch's  Lives,  Plato's  Phaedo,  Gorgias, 
Phaedrus,  Crito,  and  Apologia;  ten  books  of  Aristotle's 
Ethics,  eight  books  of  his  Politics,  two  books  of  his  Eco- 
nomics; then  Aeschines  against  Ctesiphon  and  Demos- 
thenes' de  Corona,  and  something  more  from  Demos- 
thenes with  bits  from  Aristophanes,  and  extracts  from 
Xenophon.  In  a  letter  to  his  occasionally  rasping  friend, 
Niccolo  Niccoli,^"^  Bruni  writes  that  his  love  for  Plato 
grows  as  he  advances  with  his  translations;  and  he  is 
grateful  to  "  Coluccio  patri  ac  praeceptori  meo  "  for  urg- 
ing the  work  upon  him. 

"  There  is  in  Plato  the  utmost  urbanity,  the  finest  method  of 
reasoning,  and  subtlety;  while  the  abundant  and  divine  opinions 
of  the  disputants  are  given  with  marvellous  pleasantness  and  an 
incredible  fluency  of  phrase.  His  is  the  utmost  facility  of  speech, 
with  an  abundance  of  that  admirable  x^P^*^?  ^s  the  Greeks  call  it. 
There  is  neither  sweating  nor  violence;  everything  is  said  as  by  a 
man  who  holds  words  and  their  laws  in  his  power.  .  .  .  Such 
a  one  indeed  is  Plato  among  the  Greeks,  and  unless  I  show  him 
such  to  the  Latins,  let  them  be  sure  that  he  is  made  worse  through 
my  fault,  and  not  think  they  are  reading  Plato,  but  my  ineptitudes. 
I  promise  to  labor  to  keep  that  from  happening;  I  do  not  promise 
to  succeed,  for  I  would  not  dare  make  any  such  promise.  But  un- 
less I  am  mistaken,  I  will  warrant  you,  that  you  shall  read  your 
Plato  without  annoyance,  and,  I  will  add,  with  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure; which  I  think  neither  Calcidius,  nor  the  other  [translator] 
who  has  carefully  withheld  his  name,  has  enabled  you  to  do.  They 
perhaps  set  about  it  in  one  way,  and  I  in  another.  For  they,  de- 
parting from  Plato,  have  followed  syllables  and  figures  of  speech ; 
but  I  adhere  to  Plato,  whom  I  imagine  tQ  myself  as  knowing  Latin, 
so  that  he  can  judge,  and  be  a  witness  to  his  translation;  and  I 
translate  in  such  wise  as  I  know  will  please  him  best.  In  the  first 
place,  I  preserve  all  his  ideas,  so  as  not  to  depart  from  them  in  the 
least.  Then  if  I  can  render  him  word  for  word,  without  impro- 
priety or  absurdity,  I  choose  that  way.  But  if  that  is  impossible, 
I  am  not  afraid  of  falling  into  the  crime  of  lese  majeste,  if,  when 
I  have  kept  the  idea,  I  depart  ever  so  little  from  the  words,  so  as  to 
avoid  absurdity.  For  Plato  himself  presently  orders  me  to  do  this, 
since  he,  who  is  most  elegant  of  speech  among  the  Greeks,  does  not 
wish,  among  the  Latins,  to  appear  absurd.  Following  these  prin- 
ciples, unless  I  do  as  I  promise,  I  do  not  object  to  being  thrown 
into  the  oven." 

17  Lib.  I,  ep.  8,  in  L.  Mehus's  edition  of  Bruni's  letters  —  Leonardi 
Bruni  Aretini  Epistolarum  Libri  VIII,  Florence  1741,  2  vols.  (There  are 
in  fact  ten  libri  in  this  edition.) 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  39 

In  the  next  generation,  Bruni's  translations  of  Plato 
were  to  be  superseded  by  Ficino's;  and  in  his  lifetime,  he 
had  many  a  battle  to  fight  over  his  renderings  of  Aris- 
totle. He  vows  that  he  never  added  one  jot  or  tittle  to 
Aristotle's  meaning,  and  had  differed  from  former  trans- 
lators only  after  deep  consideration.  Let  his  critics  first 
understand  Greek  and  know  the  force  of  its  words,  upon 
which  he  has  spent  more  than  eighteen  years  of  study,  and 
has  overlooked  no  point  of  brilliancy  in  the  Greek  tongue. 
"  Besides  Aristotle,  so  much  from  Plato,  Demosthenes, 
Plutarch,  Xenophon,  have  we  translated,  that  we  have 
become  veterans  in  that  art,  not  tyros !  "  Bruni  admired 
Aristotle  even  as  a  writer:  ''  I  do  not  see  how  anyone 
could  write  more  suitably  or  pleasantly  or  fluently  upon 
those  matters  which  Aristotle  treated.  .  .  .  Surely,  if 
anyone  should  throw  dirt  on  one  of  Giotto's  pictures,  I 
could  not  stand  it.  How  then  do  you  think  It  is  with  me, 
when  I  see  Aristotle's  works,  more  precious  than  any 
picture,  defiled  with  such  dirt  of  a  translation!  "  ^^ 

Bruni's  letters,  though  less  brilliant  than  Poggio's,  are 
pleasant  reading.  He  wrote  many  books,  among  which 
he  may  have  attached  most  value  to  his  History  of 
Florence.  Innocent  VII  called  him,  while  still  Httle  more 
than  a  protege  of  Salutato's,  to  the  post  of  papal  secre- 
tary. The  pope  was  taken  aback  at  his  youthful  appear- 
ance, but  was  amply  reassured  by  the  first  letters  which  he 
composed,  as  Bruni  recounts  to  his  old  friend  and  mas- 
ter.^^  His  clear  and  sprightly  epistolary  style  attracts 
one  now;  the  writer  was  very  much  awake.  Passing  over 
the  Eastern  Alps  from  Trent  to  the  Council  of  Constance, 
this  papal  secretary  was  impressed  with  the  asperities  of 
the  way:  "  Mountains  so  great  and  cliffs  so  high,  such 
ridges,  peaks  and  summits,  such  giants  everywhere  rise 
up,  that  one  marvels  exceedingly  what  that  parent  and 
framer  of  the  world.  Nature,  was  after  when  she  made 
them.  Horror,  Indeed,  and  awe  held  me  as  I  gazed  on 
those  eternal  and  everlasting  masses,  and  I  cannot  recall 

18  Lib.  X,  Ep.  26 ;  IV,  Ep.  22.  cf .  VII,  4  and  7. 

19  Lib.  I,  Ep.  I  and  2. 


40  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

them  now  without  a  shudder."  -^  Doubtless  BrunI  felt 
this;  he  Is  still  close  to  the  classic  attitude  toward  moun- 
tains, for  which  the  Middle  Ages  also  had  no  love. 

BrunI  appreciated  the  humane  Influence  to  be  gained 
from  classic  studies.  "  Let  your  application  have  a  two- 
fold end,"  he  writes  to  a  youth,  "  the  one  the  knowledge 
of  letters,  the  other  an  understanding  of  those  things 
which  pertain  to  life  and  manners,  which  on  that  account 
are  called  huvianitatis  studia,  because  they  perfect  and 
equip  the  man."  He  was  finely  conscious  of  the  Inner 
significance  of  language,  the  meaning  to  be  read  between 
the  lines:  "Intent  Is  grasped  not  only  from  words, 
which  may  be  feigned,  but  from  the  expression  in  the 
face  and  eyes  of  the  speaker.  ...  I  also  seem  to  notice 
the  same  In  the  letters  of  a  good  wTlter  ...  in  which, 
besides  words  and  sound,  there  Is  something  behind,  a 
tacit  Indication  of  the  mind,  which,  as  from  the  movement 
of  a  speaker's  eyes,  you  may  catch,  In  a  writer,  from  the 
very  vibration  of  his  discourse."  -^ 

BrunI  held  his  papal  secretaryship  under  successive 
popes;  but  he  closed  his  life  as  chancellor  of  Florence,  as 
his  master  Coluccio  before  him;  and,  like  Coluccio,  as  he 
lay  In  his  coffin,  "  indutus  serlcam  vestem  calore  ferru- 
glneo,"  he  was  crowned  with  laurel  by  MannettI,  who  gave 
a  long  oration  upon  his  career  and  virtues;  to  which 
Poggio  added  a  shorter  and  admirable  one.^- 

The  cleverest  of  all  these  early  Latin-writing,  Greek- 
studying  scholars  was  this  Poggio  Bracclollni.-^  i\l- 
though  he  spent  most  of  his  life  In  the  service  of  the 
Curia  at  Rome,  he  belongs  to  the  Florentine  group, 
through  birth  in  the  neighborhood  of  Florence,  through 
early  education,  and  through  life-long  association.  Born 
in  1380  of  Im.poverlshed  parents,  he  came  when  but  a  boy 

20  Lib.  IV,  Ep.  3. 

21  Lib.  VI,  Ep.  6;  VII,  Ep.  3. 

22  These  orations  are  printed  in  Mehus's  edition  of  Bruni's  letters,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  LXXXIX-CXXVI. 

23  There  is  a  good  monograph  on  Poggio,  E.  Walser,  Poggius  Floren- 
ttnus,  (Berlin  1914),  which  has  been  translated  into  English. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  41 

to  the  city,  where  Salutato  became  interested  In  him,  and 
soon  treated  him  as  a  son.  He  made  friends,  above  all 
with  that  collector  of  friends  as  well  as  books,  the  excel- 
lent Latinist,  Niccolo  Niccoli,  who  lent  him  his  counte- 
nance and  books  and  money.  He  heard  Chrysoloras  lec- 
ture; but  at  that  early  age  had  still  to  devote  himself  to 
Latin  and  to  earning  a  living  by  copying  manuscripts. 
When  twenty-three,  he  went  to  Rome  to  begin  a  long  and 
wellpaid,  though  often  interrupted,  service  of  the  Curia. 
But  his  mind  clung  to  Florence,  whether  his  body  was  at 
Rome,  or  in  England,  or  at  Constance,  Baden  or  St.  Gall. 
And  afterwards  in  the  Florentine  contado,  when  he  was 
rich,  and  the  father  of  two  families,  he  still  would  build 
his  villa,  and  fill  it  with  books  and  broken  antique  statues, 
coins  and  gems  and  other  paraphernalia  of  a  fifteenth 
century  Italian  lover  of  the  classics.  Florence  in  her 
turn  honored  him;  sent  him  her  citizenship  when  far  away 
in  Constance,  recognized  his  quickness  to  use  that  pen 
of  his  in  her  defense,  and  at  the  end,  when  he  was  seventy- 
three,  pressed  the  office  of  Chancellor  upon  him.  He 
died  six  years  after. 

In  the  meanwhile,  what  a  life  of  student  energy  had 
been  his !  how  had  he  as  a  hound  hunted  out  manuscripts, 
freeing  them  from  their  dungeons  (ergastula)  in  German 
cloisters,  and  restoring  more  than  one  classic  to  actual  life. 
In  this  hunt  he  was  facile  princeps,  rescuing  Quintilian's 
Institutes  in  St.  Gall,  and  Valerius  Flaccus'  Argonautica, 
copying  them  with  his  own  skilled  hand.  To  his  credit 
also  should  be  placed  Lucretius,  Ammianus  Marcelllnus, 
and  some  of  Cicero's  orations.  He  also  proved  his 
scholar's  intelligence  in  his  ceaseless  copying  of  ancient 
inscriptions  from  the  monuments,  which  he  recognized  as 
a  source  of  sure  contemporary  information.  And  a 
propos  of  Poggio,  one  may  remark  how  naturally  classical 
studies  joined  with  an  interest  in  antiquities  of  all  kinds, 
with  a  love  for  old  heads  and  broken  statues,  which  were 
also  beautiful;  and  so  with  the  love  of  visible,  sensual 
beauty,  and  all  things  ministering  to  It.     Thus  letters 


42  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

were  at  one  with  the  love  of  beauty,  luxury,  and  gorgeous 
living,  which  one  associates  with  the  Italian  quattrocento 
and  cinquecento. 

Some  of  Pogglo's  letters  strike  us  as  rhetoric;  but 
often  they  are  delightful,  and  usually  are  written  In  bright, 
easy  Latin,  yet  with  the  constant  sufficient  correctness  of 
a  great  scholar  and  litterateur.  Well  known  Is  his  letter 
telling  of  the  life  of  Baden,  with  men  and  women  enjoying 
themselves  socially  In  the  baths.  The  next  epistle  Is 
renowned  for  Its  narrative  of  the  trial  and  defense  and 
burning  of  Jerome  of  Prague  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, where  the  martyr  heretic  dies  with  the  constancy 
of  a  Cato,  an  admirable  sight.  Again  how  colloquial 
Pogglo  can  be  —  writing  to  his  closest  friend:  "  Quid 
mlhl  agendum  fulsse  existlmas,  mi  Nicole?  Constltue 
te  in  locum  meum:  " — put  yourself  In  my  place. ^^  And 
what  eagerness  and  Impatience  fill  his  page  when  he  scents 
a  new  manuscript  to  be  unearthed  —  in  one  case  the  sup- 
posed manuscript  of  Livy;  hurry!  hurry!  pants  the  letter; 
get  Cosimo  to  put  up  the  money;  get  it  quick!  In  this 
case,  he  was  chasing  an  i^nis  fatiius.  And  so  he  writes 
and  writes,  about  getting  books  and  books  and  books, 
from  this  and  that  other  German  monk  or  monastery; 
and  he  can  be  sharp  enough  —  why  mince  words  with  a 
friend?  as  he  says  to  Niccolo:  "  De  llbrls  Germanis  nil 
dicam  ampllus,  nisi  me  non  dormire  more  tuo,  sed  vlg- 
ilare."  ^s 

Obviously  these  people,  Pogglo  above  all,  gave  them- 
selves over  utterly  to  collecting  books  and  to  classical 
studies,  as  men  had  not  done  In  the  Middle  Ages.  Pog- 
glo and  Bruni  were  reputed  to  be  pagans.  Italy  in  their 
time  had  no  objection  to  such,  hating  only  heretics. 
PoOTO  and  his  friends  do  not  play,  as  in  the  Middle 
Ag-es,  at  makinc:  all  knowledq:e  the  handmaid  of  theolos^y; 
vet  he  knows  well  the  phrase,  parens  et  reo^ina  scien- 
tiarum  omnium.      Even  Pogglo  has  not  quite  thrown  over 

24  This  is  Ep.  I,  II,  of  Vol.  I  of  Tonelli's  edition.  The  two  others 
precede  it. 

25  Ep.  Ill,  1. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  43 

the  Fathers,  will  at  least  read  them  In  default  of  other 
occupation;  in  London,  for  example,  whither  he  had 
gone,  and  had  been  disappointed  in  his  hopes  of  emolu- 
ment. There  he  reads  Augustine,  and  the  homilies  of 
Chrysostom  in  translation.  There  also  he  had  three 
months'  leisure  for  Aristotle,  turning  over  his  works  to 
see  what  was  in  each  —  reason  enough  for  studying 
Greek  (in  which  Poggio  never  was  proficient),  to  know 
this  man  in  his  own  tongue,  who  in  another  tongue  is 
"  ehnguis  et  absurdus."  For  an  expositor,  he  had 
Thomas  Aquinas,  "  virum  egregium  et  fecundum."  But 
he  returns  quickly  to  Chrysostom  and  Augustine,  wishing 
to  read  Augustine  on  Paul  and  Matthew:  "nam,  pace 
aliorum  dixerim,  hie  vir  longe  humero  supereminet 
omnes."  "  Hie  vir  "  is  Augustine,  and  this  letter  shows 
how  that  great  Father  could  hold  his  own  with  Poggio, 
as  he  had  half  dominated  Petrarch.^^ 

Poggio  says  that  the  English  monasteries  had  few  books 
to  interest  him;  he  saw  catalogues  containing  nothing 
"  dignum  studiis  humanitatis."  Curiously  enough,  in  the 
same  letter  he  evinces  qualms:  he  cannot  adjust  his  con- 
duct with  his  principles;  even  his  interests  waver.  "  The 
sacred  books  which  I  have  read,  and  daily  read,  have 
cooled  my  early  studium  humanitatis,  to  which,  as  you 
know,  I  have  been  devoted  from  boyhood.  For  the  foun- 
dations of  these  studies  are  vain,  partly  false;  —  all 
vanity!  But  the  foundation  of  sacred  eloquence  is  truth, 
which  lost,  we  can  hold  and  do  nothing  good."  He  adds, 
"  If  you  think  I  have  mended  my  ways,  they  are  worse 
than  ever."  But  on  his  fiftieth  birthday,  he  writes  to 
Niccolo  that  he  will  seek  gradually  a  better  sort  of  life.^^ 

One  may  smile !  Poggio's  morals  were  weak  enough, 
though  at  the  age  of  fifty-five  he  gave  up  his  mistress, 
from  whom  he  is  said  to  have  had  fourteen  children,  to 
take  a  fresh  young  wife.  He  was  true  to  his  friends,  and 
grateful;  but  a  vile  reviler  of  his  enemies,  as  was  the  cus- 
tom of  his  tribe.     Likewise  he  hunted  the  emoluments  of 

2a  Ep.  II,  16;  I,  6  &  8. 
27  Ep.  I,  13;  IV,  5. 


44  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

life  and  learning;  and  none  equalled  him  in  turning  dedi- 
cations of  his  writings  into  money.  His  Facetiae  were 
more  often  foul  than  funny.  But  he  was  quite  of  his 
time,  and  a  fine  scholar,  to  whose  zeal  for  rescuing  manu- 
scripts the  world  owes  much. 

One  cannot  speak  at  length  of  all  the  men  composing 
this  chief  group  of  early  humanists,  whose  hearth  and 
home  was  Florence,  and  whose  Maecenas  was  Cosmo  dei 
Medici.  One  feels  that  they  were  very  happy  in  their 
enthusiasms.  The  antique  world  was  a  sort  of  new  world 
for  them,  newly  discovered  by  them,  as  it  seemed;  for  they 
had  come  to  it  with  such  a  young  new  interest;  and  an 
interest  which  in  the  volume  and  diffusion  and  effect  of  its 
energy  was  new  in  fact.  So  they  felt  themselves  happily 
exploring  a  land  unexplored  and  full  of  fascinations,  full 
of  promise.  Their  way  of  life  was  also  new.  They  did 
not  live  in  monasteries,  nor  cluster  around  Cathedral 
schools,  or  hold  chairs  at  universities.  They  were 
literati,  secretaries  to  cities,  to  despots,  to  popes,  court 
scribes,  court  poets.  But  among  themselves  they  formed 
a  band,  not  of  brothers,  often  of  hateful  foes,  but  still  of 
men  united  in  their  enthusiasms  and  pursuits.  They 
helped  each  other  enormously.  No  one  of  them  could 
have  done  as  much  as  he  did  to  advance  classical  scholar- 
ship, had  not  the  others  aided  him;  each  to  each  was  a 
tap  of  information,  a  lending  library,  sometimes  a  source 
of  cash.  Those  who  did  not  produce  much  themselves, 
hke  Niccolo  Niccoli  and  Ambrosio  Traversari,  were 
pivots  around  whom  the  others  profitably  circled.  Nic- 
colo Niccoli,  a  fat  httle  man  and  autocratic  Latinist,  is 
spoken  of  by  Cortesius  of  the  next  Florentine  generation 
as  one  "  who  gained  great  glory  through  cultivating  the 
friendships  of  the  most  learned  men."  He  had  the  best 
library  in  Florence;  of  its  eight  hundred  volumes,  two 
hundred  were  in  lending  in  1437,  when  he  expired  de- 
voutly, in  the  arms  of  his  friend  Traversari,  the  General 
of  the  Order  of  Camalduli.  The  voluminous  collected 
correspondence  of  the  latter,  comprising  his  own  and  his 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  45 

friends'  letters,  serves  to  bring  these  men  into  a  group. ^^ 
As  monk  and  General  of  his  Order,  Traversari  was  a 
prelate  active  in  ecclesiastical  intrigues,  and  a  pillar  of 
conventional  piety;  but  as  a  man  and  humanist,  he  was  a 
vivacious  companion,  an  eager  student,  and  an  aid  to 
others.  He  was  worried  often  by  religious  compunc- 
tions, as  in  his  work  at  translating  the  heathen  historian 
of  heathen  philosophy,  Diogenes  Laertius.  In  his  own 
compositions  he  endeavored  to  avoid  profane  citations! 
He  sends  to  Pope  Eugenius  IV  St.  Bernard's  De  Con- 
sideratione,  as  an  apt  book  for  a  new  pope;  he  is  much 
interested  in  Greek,  and  in  books,  books,  books.  Also  a 
great  reader  of  the  Church  Fathers,  with  a  predilection 
for  Lactantius  because  of  his  Ciceronian  style,  and  for 
Athanasius  as  the  rock  of  orthodoxy.  Admiration  for 
that  "  eximius  vir  "  so  holds  him,  as  he  says,  "  ut  ab  eo 
divelli  non  possim."  He  will  devote  himself  to  that 
"  igneo  ac  coelesti  homini,"  when  he  can  command  time. 
The  letters  to  his  close  friend  Niccolo  are  generally  Inter- 
esting. A  number  of  them  are  taken  up  with  his  delight- 
ful humanistic  journey  to  Rome,  and  to  Venice,  Ferrara, 
Mantua,  Ravenna.  He  stays  at  the  monasteries  of  his 
Order  and  rummages  them  for  manuscripts;  he  also  looks 
at  the  antique  curiosities  of  each  town:  at  Ravenna  he 
admires  the  churches  (templa)  and  many-colored  marble 
columns,  and  all  the  mosaics;  at  Venice,  CIriaco  shows 
him  his  coins. ^^ 

The  man  last  named,  CIriaco  of  Ancona,  is  known  to 
fame  as  the  tireless,  fearless  explorer  of  antique  sites,  and 
collector  of  gems  and  coins,  statues  and  manuscripts,  and 
all  sorts  of  Information  from  places  far  and  difficult. ^^ 
It  were  a  long  task  to  describe  his  journeys.  He  was  a 
trader  with  a  passion  for  exploration,  and  gained  his 
knowledge  and  his  education  as  he  travelled,  even  his 
Latin    and    Greek.     In    Rome    he    visits    antique    tem- 

^^  Amhrosius    Traversar'ius    Camaldunensis, —  Epistolae,    Vita    &c.,    ed. 
by  L.  Mehus   (Florence  1749). 

29  Lib.  VIII,  ep.  12  and  42-54. 

30  See  G.  Voight,  Wiederhelehung  &c.,  I,  p.  269  sqq.  (3rd  Ed.  1891). 


46  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

pies,  theatres,  palaces,  baths,  triumphal  arches,  aqueducts 
as  well,  and  bridges;  he  makes  drawings  of  columns, 
and  copies  inscriptions.  He  takes  ship  for  Byzantium, 
and  searches  for  antiquities  in  Chios,  and  collects  Greek 
and  Latin  inscriptions.  He  visits  Rhodes  and  then  Beirut 
and  Damascus,  everywhere  buying,  both  as  connoisseur 
and  trader,  manuscripts  and  bronzes,  coins  and  gems, 
any  object  of  antiquarian  interest.  He  visited  Adria- 
nople;  and  afterwards  ranged  Italy  through  and  through, 
from  Sicily  to  the  northern  bounds:  he  travelled  in  Dal- 
matia,  Greece,  Egypt,  visited  Crete:  it  were  hard  to  say 
where  his  restless  feet  did  not  tread.  He  appears  in 
humanistic  circles,  with  antiquities  to  show  or  sell,  and 
all  manner  of  information  (some  of  it  wrong)  to  im- 
part. His  scholarship  might  be  questioned, —  that  of 
the  self-taught  man  is  likely  to  be  peccable;  but  he  was  a 
well-known  and  interesting  personality.  In  spite  of  his 
faulty  knowledge,  his  collections  of  inscriptions  were  of 
great  value. 

There  was  another  and  more  important  man,  who  wan- 
dered also,  or  at  least  often  changed  his  abode,  not  from 
love  of  exploration,  but  from  restlessness  and  the  diffi- 
culties caused  by  his  insolence.  This  was  Filelfo,^^  a  man 
of  much  learning^  for  his  time.  He  had  lived  and  studied 
In  Constantinople,  and  had  married  a  Greek  wife.  In 
1427,  when  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  he  returned  from  the 
East,  landing  at  Venice.  Well  equipped  with  Greek,  he 
taught  there  for  a  while,  making  a  sensation,  as  he  says. 
About  two  years  afterwards,  having:  tried  various  ruses  to 
secure  a  high  salary,  he  came  to  Florence,  at  the  invita- 
tion of  Niccolo  and  Traversari,  and  under  the  patronage 
of  Cosimo  and  other  great  ones.  Besides  his  Greek  ac- 
complishments, he  was  one  of  the  best  of  Latin  writers 
In  prose  and  metre.  He  was  to  lecture  on  Livy  and 
Cicero,    and   Terence,   Thucydldes,    Xenophon    and    the 

31  On  Filelfo,  see  Voight.  Wiederhelehun^  etc.,  I,  348  sqq.  (3rd  Ed.); 
G.  Benadduci,  Prose  e  poesle  'volgari  di  Francesco  Filelfo  (Ancona  1901)  ; 
E.  Lecrand.  Cent-dix  lettres  grecques  de  Francois  Filelfe,  (Paris  1892)  ; 
T.  Klette,  Die  griechische  Brief e  des  Franciscus  Philelphus,  (Greifswald 
1890). 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  47 

Iliad,  His  lectures  drew  great  audiences,  and  he  gave 
hours  at  home  on  the  humanities,  all  most  successfully. 
His  friendship  was  sought  by  the  best  men.  But  his  head 
began  to  strike  the  clouds  a  little  overmuch;  the  earth 
could  hardly  hold  him.  He  fell  out  with  the  tempera- 
mental NIccolo  —  a  bad  man  to  fall  out  with —  and  sun- 
dry others.  Coslmo  and  his  brother  showed  estrange- 
ment. In  1433  a  revolt  of  the  nobles  brought  Coslmo  to 
prison.  Fllelfo  spoke  out,  and  urged  his  death.  Coslmo 
was  exiled,  but  recalled  to  power  within  the  year,  and 
Fllelfo  fled  advisedly.  Some  months  afterwards  a  bravo 
attempted  his  life  In  Sienna.  The  feud  was  on,  the  liter- 
ary feud,  with  Pogglo  the  chief  gladiator  on  the  other 
side :  the  weapons  Ink  and  filth.  Foul  as  were  the  mutual 
accusations,  they  were  not  all  calumnies.  We  will  not 
take  up  this  oft-told  story.  After  many  decades,  when 
Coslmo  had  long  been  dead,  Fllelfo,  reconciled  and  par- 
doned by  the  Medici,  returned  to  Florence  a  man  of 
eighty-three.  It  was  In  the  summer;  the  heat  and  fatigue 
of  the  journey  were  too  much  for  him.  He  died  as  the 
result.  He  had  done  much  In  Greek  as  well  as  Latin 
prose  and  verse,  and  in  the  volgare  too. 

It  is  necessary  to  speak  more  particularly  of  Lorentius 
Valla,  unquestionably  the  hardest  thinker  and  closest 
scholar  that  had  so  far  appeared  among  the  Itahan  hu- 
manists. Alfonso  of  Arragon  had  made  good  by  force 
of  arms  his  claim  to  the  Kingdom  of  Sicily  and  Naples. 
He  adopted  the  humanistic  fashions  of  the  time  in  Italy, 
by  showing  a  constant  interest  in  the  classics,  having  them 
read  to  him  in  translations  daily  after  dinner.  He  culti- 
vated the  society  of  the  learned,  and  was  a  patron  of 
those  men  whose  writings  should  immortalize  his  deeds 
and  enhance  the  glory  of  his  reign.  Lorentius  Valla  at- 
tached himself  to  the  King  In  the  midst  of  a  campaign. 
He  accompanied  him  to  Naples,  and  for  some  years  dwelt 
beneath  his  aegis,  serving  him  In  various  literary  capa- 
cities. 

Valla  loved  to  call  himself  a  Roman,  although  he  seems 
to  have  been  born  in  Placenza  in  1407.     But  he  passed 


48  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

his  youth  In  Rome,  and  his  early  manhood,  enjoying  there 
the  society  and  instruction  of  Bruni,  Poggio,  and  the 
Greek  scholar  Aurispa,  who  had  brought  his  fund  of 
learning  and  his  store  of  books  from  Constantinople. 
Valla  was  never  at  his  best  in  Greek,  but  he  possessed  a 
close  knowledge  of  classic  Latin,  a  powerfully  reasoning 
mind,  and  a  temper  none  too  sweetly  combative,  when  he 
left  Rome  in  1431.  He  first  taught  in  Pa  via,  there  at- 
tacking both  the  dialecticians  and  the  jurists.  Then  he 
stayed  transiently  in  Milan  and  Genoa,  Ferrara  and 
Mantua,  and  at  last  more  permanently  in  Naples,  under 
Alfonso's  protection,  which  he  needed. 

For  Valla  did  not  content  himself  with  piling  factitious 
scorn  on  rival  humanists;  he  attacked  long-held  accep- 
tances, and  made  himself  a  danger  to  papal  pretensions, 
if  not  to  Christian  morals.  With  all  his  devotion  to 
Latin  letters,  his  mind  was  destructively  and  constructively 
critical,  and  recalcitrant  against  authority.  Curiously 
enough,  in  part  from  an  instinct  to  combat  received  opin- 
ion, Valla  maintained  the  superiority  of  Quintilian  as  a 
rhetorician  over  Cicero;  he  later  was  to  assert  the  su- 
periority of  Demosthenes  over  Cicero  as  an  orator.  He 
stands  out  among  his  fellows  as  an  absolute  classicist. ^- 

The  humanist  theory,  beginning  with  Petrarch,  was  to 
contemn  the  post-classical  and  mediaeval  changes  in  Latin, 
and  insist  upon  conformity  to  classical  models.  Yet  the 
practice  had  been  looser,  and  many  current  usages  were 
accepted.  Valla  alone,  with  strenuous  consistency  and 
unique  grammatical  insight,  insisted  upon  adherence  to 
classical  correctness  in  practice;  and  proceeded  by  gram- 
matical analysis  to  distinguish  between  classical  and  all 
aberrant  forms.  He  set  forth  these  principles  with  am- 
ple illustration  in  his  Elegantiae  of  the  Latin  tongue,  a 
work  occupying  him  for  years,  and  containing  the  closest 
consideration  of  the  meanings  and  proper  use  of  words. 
No  work  of  the  period  evinces  such  profound  reverence 

32  The  works  of  Valla,  except  the  Ele,s[aniiae,  are  difficult  to  come  by. 
I  have  gained  much  from  Vahlen's  excellent  essay  on  him,  in  Almanach 
der  Kaiserl.  Akad.  der  Wissenschaften,  Vienna,  XIV  Jahrg.  1864,  pp. 
183  sqq. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  49 

for  the  ancient  language  of  the  Romans,  nostrorum 
majorum,  an  ancestorship  which  Valla  held  to  as  a  faith. 
The  Praefatio  proclaims  the  benign  conquest  of  Europe 
by  the  Latin  tongue,  when  arms  indeed  had  failed  the 
Romans:  Magnum  ergo  Latini  sermonis  sacramentum 
est: 

"  Great  therefore  is  the  saving  power  —  the  sacrament  —  of  the 
Latin  speech,  great  surely  its  divinity,  which  is  preserved  these 
many  centuries  among  foreigners,  among  barbarians,  among  ene- 
mies, scrupulously  and  religiously,  so  that  we  Romans  should  not 
grieve,  but  rejoice,  while  the  whole  listening  earth  should  glory. 
We  have  lost  Rome,  we  have  lost  empire,  we  have  lost  dominion, 
not  by  the  fault  of  us,  but  of  the  times;  nevertheless,  in  virtue  of 
this  more  splendid  dominion,  we  reign  until  now  in  a  large  part  of 
the  world." 

Rome  is  indeed  captured  by  the  Gauls,  he  continues, 
through  the  horrid  decay  of  Latinity;  which  this  book 
shall  do  its  share  in  re-establishing.  So  far  the  preface 
to  Book  L 

The  preface  to  the  next  book  reviles  the  Latinity  of 
those  who  came  after  Donatus,  Servius  and  Priscian  — 
'*  to  whom  I  ascribe  this  much,  that  whoever  after  them 
wrote  something  of  Latin  (aliquid  de  Latinitate),  would 
seem  to  stammer:  of  those  untaught  ones,  the  first  and 
most  arrogant  is  Isidore."  The  preface  to  Book  III 
takes  a  grammarian's  view  of  jurisprudence,  agreeing 
with  Quintilian,  that  "  every  legal  right  rests  on  the  inter- 
pretation of  words,  or  on  the  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong."  The  preface  to  the  next  book  turns  against 
those  who  despise  classical  learning.  Some  years  later, 
in  1455,  Valla  delivered  an  inaugural  Or  alio  in  Rome,  at 
the  opening  of  the  academic  year,  taking  for  his  theme 
the  great  value  of  the  Latin  tongue,  which,  universally 
diffused,  spreads  and  preserves  knowledge,  and  enables 
all  men  to  build  together  the  tower  of  knowledge  under- 
standingly,  and  not  as  at  Babel.^^ 

If  Valla's  Elegantiae  laid  the  foundations  of  modern 

33  Text  published  by  Vahlen,  L.  Vallae  tria  opuscula,—  Sitz-ber.  Phil. 
Hist  Classe,  Vienna  Acad.  1869,  B'd  62  pp.  93  sqq. 


50  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

classical  philology,  they  also  disclosed  the  quality  of  their 
author,  his  intellectual  method,  and  the  sequence  of  his 
intellectual  activities.  He  was  fundamentally  a  philolo- 
gist and  grammarian;  and  it  is  from  the  discipline  of  his 
analysis  of  the  Latin  language  that  he  passes  on  to  criti- 
cize the  loose  or  empty  thinking  obfuscating  the  minds 
of  contemporaries.  In  all  branches  of  thought,  it  is  his 
way  to  reach  greater  clarity  by  analyzing  the  meanings  of 
words,  or  again  by  discovering  the  impossibilities  hinging 
upon  the  inconsistencies  of  statement.  So  this  incisive 
questing  spirit,  from  the  suggestions  of  a  scientific  phi- 
lology, proceeded  to  attack  grammarians,  literati,  jurists, 
dialecticians  and  philosophers,  and  monks.  By  sifting 
the  exact  from  the  loose,  realities  from  falsities,  he 
passes  to  broader  criticism,  historical  or  philosophical. 
Throughout,  he  shows  himself  as  inconsiderate  of  other 
men's  opinions  as  he  was  considerate  of  fact. 

A  true  Valla  note  is  struck  in  a  letter  touching  his  old 
friend  Bruni:  "  I  have  read  through  his  Laudation  of 
Florence, —  plenam  levitatis  et  supinitatis.  .  .  .  He 
speaks  as  if  he  expected  no  one  to  reply  to  him  and  much 
less  that  anyone  should  not  assent  to  his  absurdities.  He 
would  have  Florence  the  heir  of  the  imperium  of  the 
Roman  people,  as  if  Rome  herself  were  extinct!  .  .  .  The 
style  is  lax  and  fluid  and  enervated,  lacking  dignity  and 
character,  and  in  many  places  speaking  unlatinly,  not  to 
say  corruptly."  ^* 

This  hard-headed  Valla,  so  critical  of  Bruni's  patriotic 
foolishness,  can  readily  be  Imagined  declaring  that  Hector 
and  Aeneas,  even  Rinaldo,  were  Imaginary  persons;  or 
we  hear  him  entering  upon  a  critical  discussion  of  the 
Roman  legends,  and  pointing  out  Inconsistencies  in  Livy; 
as  In  his  Emendat'wnes  sex  Ubroriim  T.  Livii  de  scciindo 
hello  punico.  He  proceeded  more  hardily  in  the  Inter- 
ests of  Alfonso,  as  w^ell  as  truth,  to  show  by  lengthy 
analysis    that    "  Constantine's    Donation "    was    a    later 

34  To  Petrus  Candidus  (cir.  1435),  taken  from  Barozzi  e  Sabbadlni, 
Studi  sul  Panorviita  e  sul  Valla   (Florence  1891). 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  51 

forgery.3^  His  patron's  protection  was  needed  when  he 
was  attacked  in  Naples  by  the  Inquisition,  on  many 
grounds,  and  among  others  for  impugning  the  accepted 
view  that  the  Apostles  successively  enunciated  the  clauses 
of  the  "  Apostles'  Creed." 

There  were  plenty  of  other  grounds.  Valla's  quest 
of  truth,  and  of  solid  reasons  even  to  support  alleged 
other-worldly  thinking,  rode  rather  roughshod  over  time- 
honored  acceptances  as  well  as  interests.  The  sequence 
of  his  writings  is  not  certain.  But  it  was  not  far  from 
1447,  ^^d  when  the  desire  to  see  Rome  again  was  strong 
in  this  Roman  fosterling,  that  he  produced  his  critical  In 
Novum  Testamentum  adnotationes,  in  which  he  sought 
to  hark  back  to  the  Greek  original,  and  to  criticize  the 
Vulgate  translation  from  the  invidious  vantage  ground 
of  a  closer  philological  investigation.  He  also  noted 
certain  inconsistencies  among  the  Gospels. ^^ 

Only  a  little  less  revered  than  the  Vulgate,  were  the 
dialectic  traditions  of  the  universities;  and  by  attacking 
these  —  even  the  Ten  Categories !  —  Valla  made  him- 
self obnoxious  to  the  scholastics  of  his  time,  whose  hate 
he  also  drew  by  the  contempt  he  poured  on  them,  in  his 
book  of  Dialecticortim  Dispiitationiim.  A  veritable 
pruning  of  dialectic,  repastinatio  as  his  sub-title  called  it, 
was  this  writing,  which  should  show  how  simple  an  affair 
was  logic  really;  much  simpler  than  grammar,  if  only 
hair-splitting  dialecticians  would  let  it  stay  so. 

But  before  this  book  had  appeared,  indeed  before  he 
ever  came  to  Naples,  he  had  made  himself  suspect  to 
serious  people  by  his  famous  De  Foluptate,  in  which,  fol- 
lowing Epicurus,  he  showed  that  man's  highest  good  lay 
in  a  tranquil  mind;  or,  rather,  perhaps  he  did,  for  he 
seemed  to  let  Christian  teaching  triumph  in  the  end.  Yet 
through  the  work,  arguments  setting  sense-pleasure  above 
all  are  given  with  enthusiasm,  and  may  have  been  intended 

35  De  falso  credita  et  ementiia  Constantini  donatione^  Declamatio. 

36  Erasmus  was  the  first  really  to  appreciate  and  indeed  appropriate 
many  of  Valla's  suggestion?.     See  post,  Chapter  VII. 


52  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

to  prove  a  valid  human  truth. ^^  At  all  events,  Valla 
was  a  hardy  reasoner  In  this  book,  as  well  as  in  his  De 
libero  arbitrio;  and  these  works  seem  to  have  had  their 
effect  on  the  great  Leibnitz. 

None  of  these  writings  stirred  such  ecclesiastic  hate 
as  the  dialogue  De  Professione  Reli^iosorum,^^  against 
the  monks.  Valla,  as  one  of  the  speakers,  denies  them 
the  name  of  religiosi,  since  they  do  not  make  a  religio 
but  a  secta,  a  word  corresponding  to  the  Greek  atpeo-t?, 
and  pregnant  with  the  detestable  innuendo  of  this  deriva- 
tion. The  Frater  answers.  But  the  course  of  the  argu- 
ment Invalidates  his  claims  to  a  superior  mode  of  life; 
an  analysis  of  his  statements  shows  them  to  prove  nothing. 
Valla  prefers  to  twist  his  opponent  up  in  his  own  misused 
words,  rather  than  put  forward  counter  allegations. 
Naturally,  the  monk's  side  is  feebly  stated,  and  Valla's 
cleverly.  Yet  some  years  later,  in  an  Apologia  addressed 
to  Eugene  IV,  Valla  queries  whether  he  did  not,  in  the 
Dialogue  concede  too  much  in  admitting  that  the  monas- 
tic life,  while  not  ntelior,  might  be  tutior.  "  Etenim  via 
a  Chrlsto  tradlta  nulla  est  tutior,  sicut  nee  mellor.  In  qua 
nulla  professio  nobis  Injungltur."  ^^  However  this  may 
be,  the  Dialogue  Is  an  Instance  of  the  cold  light  of  a  new 
worldly  reason,  without  faith,  playing  upon  the  monastic 
argument. 

This  Apologia  did  not  make  Rome  livable  for  Valla 
till  after  Eugene  had  been  succeeded  by  that  lover  of  the 
humanists,  Nicholas  V.  Then  Indeed  Valla  might  re- 
turn, to  spend  the  last  decade  of  his  life  In  the  city  he 
loved  best.  Nicholas  set  him  to  work  translating  Thucy- 
dides,  and  other  Greek  works,  It  being  this  Pontiff's  dar- 
ling wish  to  possess  the  Greek  literature  In  readable  Latin. 
The  huge  Income  from  the  papal  Jubilee  of  1450  enabled 
him  to  subsidize  the  scholar  world  and  set  It  to  this  task. 

Yes,  wealth  and  humanism  went  together;  nor  did  these 

37  F.  Gabotto  has  an  article  on  L'epicureismo  di  L.  Valla  in  Rlvista  di 
filosofia  scientifica  for  1889  (pp.  651-672). 

38  Published    by    Vahlen  —  Laurentii    Vallae    opuscula    tria.     Sitz-bcr. 
Phil.  Hist.  Classe,  Vienna  Acad.  1869,  B'd  62,  pp.  99-134- 

P  Luther  took  a  like  position  regarding  monks'  vows.     See  post  chap.  IX. 


EARLY  ITALIAN  HUMANISTS  53 

flattering  humanists  care  for  the  glory  of  a  threadbare 
coat.  The  joi  de  vivre  and  a  more  splendid  life  suitably 
accompanied  the  renewed  delight  in  the  classics,  them- 
selves exponents  of  a  full  round  of  human  quality,  and 
friendly  to  the  glory  of  this  world.  Those  ancients  were 
nobly  garbed  and  splendid  gentlemen;  and  it  will  seem 
proper  enough  that  the  elderly  and  none  too  prosperous 
Machiavelli,  living  on  his  farm,  after  coming  in  from  his 
daily  rustic  mire,  should  lay  aside  his  dirty  clothes,  and 
put  on  abiti  regali  e  ciiriali,  before  sitting  down  with  those 
stately  masters  of  the  world.  Moreover,  a  taste  for  let- 
ters and  the  love  of  luxury  and  art  and  splendor,  naturally 
are  found  together  In  those  lordly  patrons,  those  proper 
amateurs,  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  in  Italy; 
and  craft  and  letters  often  would  work  together  In  the 
creation  of  the  work  of  art,  as  when  Bruni  was  called  in 
to  advise  upon  the  choice  of  subjects  for  Ghiberti's  doors 
to  the  Baptistry. 

If  the  other  humanists  had  been,  and  were  to  be,  artists 
In  words.  Valla  was  a  man  of  science,  whether  as  philolo- 
gist or  philosopher.  His  literary  powers  were  not 
marked,  and  his  Instinct  was  at  fault  In  his  weeding  out  of 
current  Latin  usage,  and  his  demand  for  a  no  longer  pos- 
sible adherence  to  the  classic  phrase  and  use  of  words. 
After  all,  the  question  of  writing  classical  or  unclasslcal 
Latin  was  becoming  a  battle  of  shades,  in  the  face  of  the 
likewise  academic  strife  between  Latin  and  the  volgare, 
and  the  actual  literary  triumph  of  the  latter.  One  should 
realize  that  In  Italy  the  study  of  the  Latin  humanities 
was  a  phase  of  human  growth,  leading  on  to  a  fuller  ex- 
pansion and  expression  of  humanity  not  only  in  art  but 
in  the  other  living  medium,  to  wit,  the  volgare.  The 
humanists  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  not  quite  so  dumb 
as  to  fail  to  see  the  worth  of  the  Italian  works  of  Dante, 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio. 


CHAPTER  III 

LORENZO,    POLIZIANO,    ARIOSTO,    TASSO 

Touching  the  earlier  humanists  spoken  of  In  the  last 
chapter,  one  may  ask,  what  advance  of  thought,  what 
growth  of  human  Intelligence,  what  novelties  of  expres- 
sion do  they  present?  They  drew  Inspiration  from  Pe- 
trarch and  Boccaccio;  and  more  unreservedly  than  had 
been  possible  In  the  Middle  Ages,  their  minds  were  fixed 
upon  the  Intellectual  and  artistic  concerns  of  mortal  life. 
They  were  disposed  to  love  It  all;  only  upon  Intrusive 
reminders  would  they  doff  their  caps  to  the  threats  and 
promises  of  their  religion. 

Palpably  and,  as  it  were,  externally,  their  education  and 
progress  hung  upon  devotion  to  the  antique,  Its  study 
and  its  Imitation.  They  brought  to  the  reading  of  the 
classics  a  renewed  openness  of  mind,  and  perceived  their 
significance  more  truly  than  mediaeval  students.  The 
early  fifteenth  century  to  which  they  belonged  had  profited 
from  the  increase  of  wealth  and  the  accumulation  of  ex- 
perience. The  fields  of  knowledge  were  broadening. 
And  if  Petrarch  was  a  better  classical  scholar  than  anyone 
before  him,  he  was  surpassed  by  his  successors,  who 
availed  of  his  example  and  accomplishment.  Many  lost 
classics  had  been  brought  to  light  by  eager  searches 
through  forgotten  places;  and  a  century  of  devotion  to 
the  classics  bore  its  fruit. 

The  veritable  progress  of  these  men,  so  far  as  It  ex- 
isted, lay  within  themselves,  although  seemingly  It  Issued 
from  their  studies.  Those  we  have  taken  as  examples 
were  diligent  and  clever;  and  at  least  one  among  them 
showed  an  Incisively  critical  intelligence.  Yet  intelli- 
gent and  clever  as  were  Valla,  Fllelfo,  Pogglo  and  BrunI, 
they  do  not  appear  to  have  evolved  and  compassed  novel 

54 


LORENZO  55 

and  Interesting  modes  of  expression,  which  are  the  sure 
proof  and  exponent  of  human  progress.  They  were  still 
students  and  assemblers;  their  self-expression  lay  In  their 
ardent  scholarship.  Perfected  and,  as  It  were,  classical 
forms  of  humanistic  expression  In  Latin  and  Italian  prose 
and  verse  were  to  arise  from  the  finished  humanistic 
genius  of  younger  men,  who  likewise  had  absorbed  the 
accomplishment  of  their  Immediate  predecessors. 


I 

Some  of  these  younger  men  were  notable  artist-schol- 
ars; one  or  two  of  them  were  extraordinary  personalities. 
Not  merely  they  surpassed  their  predecessors  In  knowl- 
edge of  the  classics;  they  had  achieved  a  more  Intimate 
appropriation  and  transmutation  of  them  Into  active 
faculty.  They  can  do  more  with  them,  or  with  the 
knowledge  and  discipline  acquired  through  their  study. 
Beyond  this,  they  can  do  more  with  the  volgare,  than  the 
men  nearer  to  Petrarch;  they  have  attained,  partly 
through  their  classic  discipline,  a  better  mastery  over  the 
proper  forms  of  Italian  compositions  In  prose  and  verse. 
They  have  reached  the  power  to  express  artistically  the 
fruits  of  their  discipline  and  knowledge.  Like  their 
Immediate  forbears,  they  owe  much  to  each  other,  much 
to  the  circumstance  that  there  Is  an  enthusiastic  well- 
equipped  group  of  them.  They  help  each  other  in  their 
education  and  their  work.  More  particularly  Lorenzo 
the  Magnificent  and  Polltlan,  whom  we  especially  have  In 
mind,  were  assisted  by  one  of  the  last  and  most  admirable 
of  Cosimo's  proteges,  Ficino,  who  was  born  in  1433,  and 
was  to  be  the  central  luminarv  of  the  Platonic  Academy 
in  Florence.  He  will  be  considered  in  a  future  chapter, 
in  connection  with  the  philosophy  of  the  period. 

Cosimo's  grandson,  Lorenzo,  merits  the  epithet  of 
superman,  from  his  qualities  of  temperament,  his  exceed- 
ing energv,  and  his  notable  and  diverse  powers.  He  was 
an  Italian  of  his  time.  This  most  astute  and  unscrupu- 
lous politician  sang  ballads  of  his  own  making  in  the 


56  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

streets  of  his  city,  equally  to  please  the  people  and  him- 
self. If  he  ruled  his  people,  he  belonged  to  them,  and 
delighted  in  them,  in  their  songs,  in  their  fetes  and  dances, 
and  in  the  hot  embraces  of  their  daughters.  He  was  re- 
puted as  licentious  as  he  was  intellectual.  The  splendid 
and  unbridled  festivals,  with  which  he  tamed  and  de- 
bauched the  Florentines,  gave  him  spontaneous  joy.  No 
mere  politician,  no  merely  voracious  ruler,  but  only  one 
who  had,  besides,  another  nature,  could  have  written  this 
verse  from  his  Trionfo  di  Bacco  e  Arianna: 

Quant'  e  bella  glovinezza, 
Chi  si  fugge  tuttavia! 
Chi  vuol  esser  lieto,  sia: 
Di  doman  non  c'e  certezza. 

The  lines  dance  of  themselves,  as  Lorenzo  also  danced 
from  delight. 

Educated  in  the  classics.  Instructed  In  some  sort  of 
antique  philosophy,  he  still  loved  his  own  Italian  literature 
and  his  Italian  tongue.  He  was  a  deep  admirer  of 
Dante,  a  devoted  lover  and  imitator  of  Petrarch's  Can- 
zoniere.  He  defended  the  volgare,  and  with  such  suc- 
cess, or  in  such  accord  with  life's  insistence  to  express 
Itself  in  the  vernacular,  that  the  volgare  needed  no  advo- 
cate after  him  to  maintain  Its  complete  supersession  of 
Latin  as  the  vehicle  of  living  literature.  Lorenzo  gives 
his  voice  for  the  volgare^  not  only  because  It  is  In  general 
use,  but  because  it  is  '*  copiosa  e  abondante,  ed  atta  a 
esprimer  bene  II  senso  e  II  concetto  della  mente,"  and  be- 
cause of  its  "  dolcezza  ed  armonia,"  and  because  of  Its 
good  repute  and  fame  and  the  many  noble  things  already 
written  In  it.^ 

Doubtless  Lorenzo's  most  effective  vindication  of  the 
volgare  was  his  use  of  It  In  his  ballads  and  other  writ- 
ings;—  Indeed  It  had  already  won  the  victory  In  the 
greatest  of  all  literary  creations  of  the  Italian  mind  and 
mood,  the  Divina  Commedia.     One  might  as  well  realize 

1  See  the  great  Florentine  edition  of  the  Opere  de  Lorenzo  de*  Medici, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  15,  sqq. 


LORENZO  57 

the  essential  feebleness  and  sheer  academic  quality  of 
whatever  the  humanists  had  said  or  done  to  re-classlcize 
and  maintain  the  literary  vitality  of  Latin.  One  will 
still  encounter  misprlsals  of  the  volgare,-  but  they  had 
no  effect  upon  the  period's  r(^al  progress  In  thought  and 
faculty.^ 

Coslmo  was  an  able  financier  and  politician,  and  an 
Intelligent  patron  of  arts  and  letters.  With  equal  ability 
in  politics  and  statecraft,  Lorenzo  had  but  casual  taste 
for  banking,  and  even  In  politics,  with  his  enormous  apti- 
tude, and  under  the  Incessant  need  to  guard  his  power  and 
life,  he  shows  the  dilettante  nature,  which  is  amused  by 
Its  task,  rather  than  absorbed  in  it.  Was  not  Lorenzo 
entertained  by  all  the  means  he  used  to  beguile  and  rule 
the  Florentines?  Must  he  not  have  enjoyed  that  possibly 
last  cast  of  the  die,  when  he  went  to  Naples  and  put  him- 
self within  the  power  of  his  enemy,  King  Ferdinand,  and 
won  a  favorable  peace  from  him  by  sheer  virtuosity  of 
argument? 

Indeed  in  Lorenzo  one  has  the  superman  as  dilettante, 
a  character  which  he  shows  more  clearly  In  fields  other 
than  politics.  A  dilettante  was  he  In  things  spiritual;  he 
would  try  the  charm  of  this  and  that  —  v/ould  turn  from 
love-songs  to  Augustine  and  then  again  to  music.  What 
a  connoisseur  he  was;  and  a  collector,  if  not  unrivalled, 
at  least  unequalled  in  Italy;  and  with  what  copiousness 
he  spoke  on  painting,  sculpture,  philosophy,  poetry  and 
music!  Lavish  In  his  expense,  lavish  in  his  patronage  of 
letters.  And  yet  even  as  dilettante,  he  was  still  the  man 
of  more  than  human  energy,  always  the  superman : 
whether  In  his  discourses  or  his  revels,  or  his  licentious- 
ness, and  so  markedly  in  the  mass  of  his  vivid  poetry. 
Political  power  came  to  him  when  he  was  twenty-one;  and 
he  was  but  forty-four  when  he  died,  leaving,   as  some 

2  For  instance,  L.  Gyraldus,  De  Poetis  nostrorum  iemporum,  ed.  by 
Wotke,   (Berlin,  1894),  p.  40  and  p.  85. 

3  Yet  such  a  considerable  man  as  Pontano  wrote  altogether  in  Latin. 
Althoug;h  born  in  Umbria,  he  was  much  more  of  a  Neapolitan  than  a 
north  Italian.  See  A.  Gaspary,  Ges.  der  italienischen  Literatur,  B'd  JI, 
pp.  301-321, 


58  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

think,   Italy  to  break  in  ruin  after  him  for  lack  of  his 
shrewd  balancing  mind. 

Politian's  often  quoted  letter  to  one  Jacobus  Anti- 
quarius  describing  Lorenzo's  pious  death,  is  to  be  taken 
rather  as  a  comment  on  the  times  than  on  Lorenzo  indi- 
vidually, a  comment  on  the  times  indeed,  that  toward  the 
last  gasp  a  famous  doctor  should  arrive  with  a  medica- 
mentum  compounded  of  pearls  and  all  manner  of  gems. 
It  was  administered,  and  still  the  patient  died.  After 
his  death,  prodigies  currently  were  reported. 

A  certain  Benedetto  of  Montepulciano,  which  was  in  the 
Florentine  territory,  realizing  that  he  was  in  danger  of 
assassination  from  his  wicked  neighbors,  recommended 
himself  and  his  children  to  the  protection  of  Piero,  son  of 
Cosimo,  and  father  of  Lorenzo,  and  was  murdered  some 
months  after,  as  he  had  feared.  His  eldest  child,  Angelo, 
was  sent  to  Florence.  This  was  in  1464,  when  Angelo 
was  ten  years  old.  Apparently  he  lived  and  studied  in 
poverty  for  several  years,  and  attended  lectures  at  the 
Florentine  Studium  Generale  or  University,  which,  having 
started  in  132 1,  was  re-inaugurated  in  the  year  of  the 
great  pestilence,  1348,  according  to  Matteo  Villani. 

Probably  the  Medici  knew  of  Angelo,  and  of  his  study- 
ing in  the  School.  His  precocity  attracted  the  notice  of 
Ficino,  and  the  flowing  translation  of  the  second  book  of 
the  Iliad  which  he  sent  to  Lorenzo  in  1470,  apparently 
led  Lorenzo  himself,  so  young  and  newly  come  to  power 
upon  his  father's  death,  to  remove  the  "  Homeric  youth  " 
from  his  poor  lodgings  to  a  Medici  palace.  From  that 
time  until  his  death  twenty-four  years  later  this  Angelo, 
called  Poliziano  from  his  birth  place,  was  praised  and 
fostered  as  the  paragon  of  poets  and  scholars.  In  the 
minds,  or  words,  of  some  of  his  admirers  such  was  the 
masterful  excellence  of  his  translation  of  those  few  books 
of  the  lUad,  that  old  Homer,  but  for  his  natural  patriot- 
ism, would  have  wished  himself  a  Latin.  Nor  has  the 
name  of  Politian  ever  lost  its  glamor;  his  name  and  face, 
and  the  fame  of  Lorenzo's  friendship  for  him,  still  touch 


POLIZIANO  59 

the  imaginations  of  men  and  women  who  love  Florence. 

One  need  not  credit  the  myth  of  his  having  produced 
the  Giostra,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  He  was  over  twenty 
when  he  composed  that  piece,  and  had  written  the 
''  Orfeo  "  two  years  before.  Soon  he  began  to  lecture  in 
the  rooms  where  he  had  been  a  learner,  and  men  of  twice 
his  age  came  from  near  and  far  to  listen  to  his  fluent 
learning.  For  Florence  it  was  the  very  golden  time  of 
letters  and  Platonism, —  those  short  decades  which  were 
still  to  pass  before  Lorenzo's  death  in  1492.  Then  came 
revulsions  and  catastrophes.  Politian  died  in  1494,  at 
the  age  of  forty,  having  seen  the  approach  of  evil  days; 
and  Ficino  died,  a  much  older  man,  in  1499;  while  the 
most  astounding  phoenix  of  them  all,  Pico,  prince  of 
Mirandula,  had  ascended  to  his  star  the  same  year  with 
Politian,  when  but  little  over  thirty.^  Savonarola  was 
left  to  reform  the  threatened  city,  and  go  to  the  stake  in 
1498.^  . 

Politian  was  a  Greek  scholar.  He  wrote  Latin  ad- 
mirably. He  excelled  as  a  poet  in  the  volgare:  the 
bosom  friend  of  Lorenzo  could  not  pretend  to  despise  the 
volgare.  Indeed  it  triumphed  distinctly  in  this  humanist 
of  humanists,  in  whom,  as  with  Boccaccio,  it  reaped  the 
benefit  of  the  classical  disciplina.  Politian  brought  Latin 
metrical  suavity  to  Italian  verse,  and  his  poems  became 
veritably  popular,  and  took  root  among  the  people.  He 
also,  like  Lorenzo,  often  imitated  Petrarch's  sonnets. 
There  was  not  very  much  originality  in  his  Italian  poetry. 
Yet  through  his  skill,  and  because  he  could  draw  from 
nature  as  well  as  from  books,  his  poems  on  love  and 
springtime  have  a  delightfulness  which  is  their  own. 

From  his  youth,  Politian  studied  and  absorbed,  and 
through  his  life  never  ceased  to  assimiliate,  the  classics. 
Although  he  lectured  on  many  parts  of  the  philosophy  of 
Aristotle,  and  wrote  whimsical  Praelectiones  to  his 
courses,  he  insisted  in  one  of  these  that  he  was  not  a 
philosopher,  but  an  interpreter,  having  the  equipment  of 

4  On  Pico  see  post  Chapter  XXX. 


6o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

a  grammaticus,  according  to  the  Greek  word,  or  literatus, 
as  one  should  say  In  Latin:  "  nee  aliud  inde  mihl  nomen 
postulo  quam  grammatici."  ^  Politian  was  not  a  serious 
Aristotelian;  nor  was  his  knowledge  of  Plato  always 
worthy  of  a  pupil  of  Ficino;  at  least  he  makes  an  unac- 
countable slip  in  this  same  Praelectio,  when  he  gives  the 
Platonic  fable  of  the  shadow-seers  in  the  cave,  and  as- 
cribes it  to  lamblichus,  "  whom  the  consensus  of  Ancient 
Greece  called  divinissimum."  Altogether  this  is  rather 
dreadful,  seeing  that  "  Ancient  Greece  "  knew  nothing 
of  that  fourth  century  hierophant,  and  we  hope  would 
not  have  regarded  him  highly.  Yet  if  Politian  culti- 
vated lamblichus  more  than  the  veritable  Plato,  he  did 
but  follow  the  tendency  of  his  time  really  to  read  and 
enjoy  the  later  Greek  and  Latin  authors.  His  own 
Giostra  reeks  with  Statius,  and  was  modelled  on  those 
poems  of  eulogy  which,  with  their  mingled  elements  of 
myth  and  lyricism,  are  to  be  found  in  Latin  literature 
from  the  time  of  Statius  to  its  last  decline.^ 

In  the  Orfeo,  Politian  did  a  stroke  of  genius,  by  apply- 
ing the  form  of  the  Mystery-representation  to  the  classic 
fable  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice.  He  wrote  this  short  and 
pleasant  piece  for  a  festival  at  the  Mantuan  Court  of  the 
Gonzagas  in  147 1 ;  a  lovely  little  pastoral  play  he  made  of 
It,  a  different  and  lesser  Co7nus,  less  transforming,  less 
transcendent,    if   one   will.'^     With   the   borrowed    fable 

5  Politian  gave  the  title  of  "  Lamia  "  to  his  Praelectio  to  the  course  on 
the  Prior  Analytics.  It  is  printed  in  Del  Lungo's  Florentia  (Florence 
1897),  pp.  133  sqq.     The  phrase  quoted  is  from  page  169-170. 

8  Carducci,  p.  xlviii,  of  the  introduction  to  his  edition  of  Le  Stanze, 
I'Orfeo  e  le  Rime  (Florence  1863). 

"^  The  pastoral  composition  which  was  read  far  and  wide,  and  influenced 
French  and  English  literature,  was  the  Arcadia  of  the  valiant  and  worthy 
scholar,  the  Neapolitan,  Sannazaro.  The  work  belongs  to  the  last  decade 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  was  a  pastoral  romance  in  prose  and  verse. 
Its  author  had  Virgil  and  Theocritus  on  his  tongue's  end,  and  knew  the 
Greek  romances.  For  Italian  antecedents,  the  work  harked  back  perhaps 
to  Boccaccio's  Filocolo  and  his  Ameto.  It  was  the  cleverest  of  mosaics 
of  borrowings  and  imitations,  filled  with  the  sentiments  and  phrases  of 
the  old  bucolic  poems,  which  the  author  used  as  naturally  as  if  they  were 
the  current  words  of  his  language.  It  also  incorporated  long  extracts 
from  those  poems.  It  is  edited,  with  introduction  and  discussions  by 
Scherillo  (Turin,  1888).  Tasso's  Aminta  (iS73)  and  Guarini's  Pastor 
Fido  (1581)  are  more  organic  compositions  than  either  the  Arcadia  or 
the  Orfeo. 


POLIZIANO  6i 

went  many  borrowings  of  classical  phrase  and  sentiment 
quite  naturally,  and  all  so  trippingly  and  lightly  put  to- 
gether, fused  into  a  melodious  Idyllic  play. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Stanze  per  la  Gios- 
tra,  a  more  difficult  and  slowly  composed  poem,  descrip- 
tive, rather  than  dramatic.  It  was  Intended  to  Immortal- 
ize the  prowess  of  Giullano  de'MedIci  in  the  jousts,  and 
his  love  for  the  gentle  Simonetta,  whose  death  followed 
not  long  after.  Either  that  sad  event,  or  the  catastrophe 
of  Giuliano's  own  assassination  in  1478,  discouraged  the 
completion  of  a  poem  which  may  have  proved  tiresome  to 
its  author.  For,  as  the  subject  of  an  elaborate  compo- 
sition, the  matter  was  empty  enough,  though  Politlan 
made  the  most  of 

Le  gloriose  pompe  e'  fieri  ludi, 

commanded  by  the  great  house  who  would  thus  show 
how  they  had  turned  from  banking  to  the  noble  arts  of 
chivalry.  Reading  the  poem,  one  can  hardly  believe  one's 
eyes,  and  the  learned  footnotes  of  Carducd's  edition,  to 
find  its  sonorous  octaves  built  of  reminiscence,  sentiment 
and  phrase  taken  from  classic  poetry;  not  "  taken,"  per- 
haps, but  rather  Imbibed,  breathed  In,  appropriated,  made 
the  new  poet's  own,  and  breathed  forth  again,  or  at  least 
reissued,  In  flowing  and  well  molten  verse.  Lucretius, 
Virgil,  Ovid,  Statlus,  Claudlan,  with  touches  from  the 
Greeks,  are  there.  But  In  the  Orfeo  and  the  Giostra,  as 
well  as  In  Polltlan's  love  poems  and  ballads,  not  merely 
sentiments  and  phrases  were  borrowed  from  the  antique; 
but  more  subtly  the  discipline  and  order  of  classic  letters 
were  drawn  Into  Italian  poetry. 

So  the  classical  literature  yielded  forms  and  phrases  to 
these  humanists,  through  which  they  gave  expression  to 
their  tastes  and  their  own  natures,  though  in  borrowed  or 
imitated  language,  and,  as  it  were,  at  second  hand.  The 
spirit  of  the  Orfeo  and  the  Giostra  likewise  reflects  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  the  antique,  as  a  summer  pool, 
stirred  by  a  sunny  breeze,  reflects,  with  a  brightness  of 
its  own,  the  branches  waving  overhead. 


62  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Politlan  was  not  satisfied  with  merely  studying,  under- 
standing, and  enjoying  the  classics.  He  would  follow 
and  imitate  their  beauty,  reproduce  that  in  words  of  his 
own,  whether  in  Latin  or  Italian.  For  he  and  others  of 
his  time  were  endeavoring  to  transform  their  knowledge 
of  classic  style  and  substance  into  a  facility  of  their  own 
in  Latin  composition.  And  then  they  would  bring  all 
this  discipline  to  the  aid  of  their  Italian  prose  and  verse. 
This  meant  to  turn  knowledge  Into  art,  and.  In  accordance 
with  the  Italian  nature,  into  the  art  of  producing  that 
which  was  beautiful  In  form. 

But  the  endeavor  to  Imitate  the  phrases,  and  follow  the 
patterns,  of  classic  literature  tended  to  make  form  the 
chief  consideration,  and  to  disregard  substance.  Yet 
these  unoriginal  composers  were  not  so  conscious  of  their 
emptiness;  nor  did  they  really  intend  to  set  mere  empty 
form  (were  such  conceivable)  before  them  as  their  goal. 
An  endeavor  to  be  and  express  themselves  is  observable 
In  the  best  among  them,  and,  curiously  enough.  In  this 
paragon  of  a  Politlan,  who  was  in  fact  so  unoriginal  and 
for  the  most  part  indifferent  to  substance.  More  than 
once  he  reminded  his  pupils  that  their  own  talents  and 
judgment  should  not  be  burled  beneath  other  men's  opin- 
ions. He  also  adjured  them  not  to  blunt  the  point  of 
their  discourses  with  overmuch  verbosity,  nor  lose  the 
thread  of  argument.^  And  again,  when  someone  had  said 
that  his  own  letters  were  not  Ciceronian,  he  had  answered 
"  In  epistolarl  stilo  silendum  prorsus  esse  de  Cicerone." 
But  if  another  should  accuse  him  of  Imitating  Cicero,  he 
might  answer:  "nihil  mihi  esse  magis  In  votis  quam  ut 
vel  umbram  Ciceronis  assequar."  ^  So  the  propriety  of 
following  or  ignoring  Cicero  depended  on  what  one  was 
writing;  In  letters  there  Is  a  virtue  in  negligence.  He 
blames  his  friend  Paulus  Cortesius,  a  great  stickler  for 
Ciceronian  Latlnity,  for  blind  imitation:  and  If  it  be  said: 

8  Cf.  Del  Lungo,  Florentia,  p.  131. 

^  Omnia  Opera  Angeli  Politiani  (Venice,  Aldus  1498)  Ep.  i  to  Petrus 
Medici. 


POLIZIANO  63 

"  Thou  dost  not  speak  like  Cicero  —  non  exprimis  Cice- 
ronem  —  what  then !  for  I  am  not  Cicero.  Yet,  as  I 
opine,  I  express  myself  —  me  tamen  exprimo."  ^^ 

Politian,  dead  at  forty,  v/as  also  a  wonderful  scholar; 
one  is  tempted  to  call  him  an  "  elegant  "  scholar,  but 
without  using  that  term  disparagingly.  His  sheer  schol- 
arship is  shown  in  his  Miscellanea,  a  work  of  the  nature  of 
Valla's  Ele^antiae,  d.nd  composed  of  matter  from  the  lec- 
tures given  at  the  University.  It  discussed  all  sorts  of 
questions  affecting  scholarship:  the  origins  of  classic  in- 
stitutions and  ceremonies,  the  significance  of  fables,  words 
and  their  uses,  even  spellings.  His  mind  was  clear  and 
penetrating;  his  treatment  pertinent  to  the  matter;  and 
he  showed  a  true  scholarly  aversion  to  pretense  and  sub- 
terfuge. He  was  an  admirable  critic  and  restorer  of  bet- 
ter readings  in  corrupt  texts.  The  Miscellanea  met  the 
needs  of  an  advancing  scholarship,  just  as,  some  centuries 
before,  the  needs  of  a  scantier  knowledge  were  met  by 
orthographies  and  grammars.  Politian  was  also  a  vali- 
ant translator  from  the  Greek.  Besides  those  early 
glorious  translations  from  the  Iliad,  he  rendered  into 
Latin  Herodian's  History,  the  Enchiridion  of  Epictetus, 
and  the  Proble7nata  of  Alexander  Aprodisias. 

Whatever  a  man  may  say,  the  truth  of  him  lies  in  what 
he  does  preponderantly.  And  preponderantly  Politian 
was  the  ideal  Italian  humanist,  wonderfully  clever  in  his 
faculty  of  giving  beauty,  perhaps  a  new  beauty,  to  his 
assimilation  of  classic  sentiments  and  phrases;  not  deeply 
caring  for  the  validity  or  seriousness  of  the  substance,  but 
beyond  others  clever  in  reaching  the  form  which  pleases, 
whatsoever  be  the  content  which  is  therein  beautified.^^ 

10  In  Lib.  VIII  of  epistles,  same  edition. 

11  Francesco  de  Sanctis  calls  Politian  "  la  piu  spiccata  espressione  della 
letteratura  in  questo  secolo.  Ci  e  gia  Timmagine  schietta  del  letterato, 
fuori  di  ogni  participazione  alia  vita  publica,  vuoto  di  ogni  coscienza 
religiosa  o  politica  o  morale.  ...  II  Poliziano  aveva  uno  squisito  senti- 
mento  della  forma  nella  plena  indiiferenza  di  ogni  contenuto."  From 
page  367  of  Storia  della  Letteratura  italiana  (Naples,  1870) — whatever 
else  one  reads  for  information,  De  Sanctis  always  should  be  read  for  his 
impressive   suggestiveness. 


64  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Withal  one  may  appreciate  his  excellent  judgment  by  con- 
trasting the  opinions  of  his  young  friend  who  disagreed 
with  him. 

Paulus  Cortesius,  to  give  his  name  in  Latin  form,  as 
he  would  have  preferred,  was  a  younger  member  of  the 
Florentine  group  of  humanists.  He  had  upbraided  Poli- 
tian  for  the  lack  of  Ciceronian  qualities  in  his  letters,  and 
had  been  taunted  by  him  for  his  own  ape-like  imitative 
habits.  He  defended  his  implicit  copying  of  Cicero,  but 
added  that  he  preferred  to  be  called  his  filius  or  alumnus, 
rather  than  his  Simia/  In  1490  he  dedicated  to  Lorenzo 
a  Dialogus  de  hominibus  doctis,^^  which  spoke  (rather 
rashly)  of  past  and  present  Florentine  notables.  To  the 
learned,  says  he,  Dante,  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  are  al- 
ready antiquated.  The  first  is  as  an  old  picture  with  its 
colors  gone,  while  its  lines  still  please.  His  poem  was 
wonderful  —  if  he  had  only  put  his  marvellous  thoughts 
in  Latin !  As  for  Petrarch,  a  man,  of  course,  greatly  to 
be  admired,  his  rough  style  is  scarcely  Latin;  his  matter 
was  composed  diligently,  rather  than  elegantly.  Natu- 
rally the  ^^  ornamenta  scrihendi  were  lacking  to  a  man 
born  in  faece  omnium  saeculorumJ* 

Cortesius  then  censures  Boccaccio's  Latin  and  Coluc- 
cio's,  which  never  laid  aside  asperitas  and  maestitia. 
Bruni  was  the  '*  first  to  bring  a  certain  rhythmic  tone  to 
that  rough  way  of  writing;  and  he  certainly  gave  us  some- 
thing rather  brilliant  .  .  .  weighty  and  judicious  in 
everything,  for  those  times  he  was  not  uncultivated.'' 
His  History  was  better  than  his  funeral  orations  because 
"  there  remained  no  funeral  orations  from  the  ancient 
authors  for  him  to  imitate."  One  may  praise  him  as 
learned  and  eloquent,  and  the  best  in  his  time,  "  but  you 
know  the  way  of  our  men  to  approve  of  nothing  unless  it 
is  refined,  and  elegant  and  polished  and  embellished." 
Incidentally,  the  Dialogue  states  that  ''  Latin  letters  had 
suffered  from  the  destruction  of  Greece  (i.e.  the  '*  fall  of 
Constantinople  "),  since  much  was  brought  by  the  Greeks 

12  Printed  in  a  volume  entitled  Philippi  ViUani  liber  de  civitatis  Flor- 
entiae  famosis  civibus  etc.,  ed.  by  G.  C.  Galletti  (Florence  1847). 


ARIOSTO  65 

to  Italy,  and  our  scholars  were  wont  to  go  to  Byzantium 
for  study,  as  to  the  home  of  learning." 

II 

Among  the  literary  productions  of  the  late  fifteenth 
and  early  sixteenth  centuries,  certainly  one,  perhaps  two, 
and  possibly  three  poems  have  proved  a  perennial  source 
of  entertainment.  They  made  use  of  that  facile  and  effi- 
cient Italian  octave  which  the  latest  of  the  three  authors 
perfected  to  the  admiration  of  the  world,  in  spite  of  a  fool 
named  Bembo,  who  advised  him,  Ariosto,  to  write  the 
Orlando  Furioso  in  Latin!  This  most  delightful  of 
Italian  narrative  poems  was  finally  finished  and  revised  the 
year  before  the  author's  death  in  1533.  It  had  been 
written  in  an  Italy  devastated  by  the  lustful  struggles  of 
Spaniards,  French  and  Germans.  Boiardo,  the  noble 
count  of  Scandiano,  had  completed  the  Orlando  Inna- 
morato  in  1494,  ending  his  glad  chivalric  poem  with  a  cry 
of  sorrow:  — 

Mentre  che  io  canto,  o  Iddio  redentore, 
Vedo  la  Italia  tutta  a  ferro  e  a  foco. 

And  Pulci  had  finished  putting  together  the  matter  of  // 
Morgante  in  1483,  eleven  years  before  the  fatal  French 
invasion. 

Pulci  was  a  Florentine,  belonging  to  the  Medici  circle; 
and  as  the  composition  of  his  poem  was  suggested  by 
Lucrezia,  the  mother  of  Lorenzo,  so  its  successive  parts 
appear  to  have  been  recited  at  Lorenzo's  table,  presum- 
ably before  such  intimates  as  Politian  and  Ficino.  If 
these  made  an  exceedingly  clever  literary  circle,  they  were 
not  a  knightly  company;  nor  was  the  Medici  house  either 
aristocratic  or  chivalric  in  its  tastes  and  temper,  any  more 
than  in  its  dealings  with  men  and  states.  Luigi  Pulci 
himself  was  a  genial  and  comic  soul,  cast  in  no  heroic 
mould;  and  one  need  not  wonder  that  the  martial  and 
adventurous  elements  in  his  poem  should  be  outweighed 


66  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

by  the  more  jovial.  The  heroic  note  stirs  Indeed  through 
his  recital  of  the  route  of  Roncevalles;  but  who  could  tell 
that  unheroically?  The  half  comic  giant  Morgante 
sways  the  poem,  and  the  lesser  but  wholly  comic  and  aban- 
doned Margutte.  Pulci  used  the  matter  of  the  French 
Chansons  de  Geste^  as  it  had  passed  into  Italian  compo- 
sitions in  prose  and  verse.  He  also  drew  from  the  popu- 
lar recitations  of  the  same  matter,  which  delighted  the 
Italian  folk  of  town  and  country;  for  the  legends  of  Char- 
lemagne and  his  paladins  had  long  since  won  a  new  home 
and  a  new  life  with  the  Italian  people.  Pulci  did  not 
turn  the  heroic  to  burlesque  with  satirical  intent;  but  the 
people's  loud  laughter  pervaded  the  stuff  he  drew  from, 
and  he  was  no  knightly  prude,  that  he  should  suppress  it. 
The  poem  is  serious  or  comic  to  suit  the  episode;  certain 
passages  show  a  philosophic  knowledge  which  has  led 
the  critics  to  find  in  them  the  hand  of  the  author's  friend, 
the  famous  Toscanelll.  For  its  frequent  classical  allu- 
sions, one  need  not  think  of  any  special  contribution  from 
Politian,  Pulci  was  scholar  enough  to  supply  them,  and 
make  Orlando  apostrophize  his  friends  already  dead  upon 
the  field, —  O  terque,  quaterque  beati  1 

The  chlvalric  epic  was  not  to  come  to  its  true  florescence 
in  Medlcean  Florence,  but  around  the  more  castellated 
and  feudal  court  of  the  Este  at  Ferrara.  Matteo  Boi- 
ardo  was  the  honored  liegeman  of  that  ducal  house,  from 
whom  he  held  the  governorships  of  Modena  and  of 
Regglo.  The  same  house  was  to  be  the  patron,  niggardly 
and  exacting  as  he  thought,  of  Ariosto.  Both  had 
proved  themselves  men  of  achievement  in  Latin  letters  as 
well  as  in  Italian  poetry  before  setting  out  upon  their 
great  poems.  These  were  to  be  the  chief  romantic  crea- 
tions of  the  time.  The  knowledge  and  attainment  of  the 
period  entered  into  their  composition,  palpably  appearing 
in  their  matter,  but  more  vitally  in  the  disciplined  faculties 
of  their  authors. 

As  for  antique  allusions,  personages,  episodes,  enough 
of  them  were  taken  into  these  poems,  and  romanticized 
by  Boiardo,  and  by  Ariosto  made  utterly  his  own.     Then 


^  ^        ARIOSTO  67 

there  was  the  mediaeval  material,  and  the  somewhat  di- 
shevelled and  fantasticized  mediaeval  atmosphere. 
Charlemagne  and  his  paladins,  domesticated  everywhere 
in  Italy,  pressed  upon  the  poets.  Those  personages  were 
too  romantically  real  and  insistent  to  be  passed  by,  and  too 
popular.  They  were  fictile,  plastic,  ubiquitous  in  their 
gallopings  and  voyages,  unheld  by  any  land,  unhindered 
by  sea  or  mountain;  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century  those 
paladins  and  their  emperor  had  travelled  through  the 
East,  encountering  strange  adventures  in  Constantinople ! 
Then  their  stories,  their  progressively  romanticizing 
chansons,  went  on  along  the  usual  way  of  mediaeval 
legend,  passing  from  crusading  and  feudal  war  to  giants 
and  enchantments  and  wandering  damsels,  jousts,  sword- 
encounters,  and  adventures  everywhere  occurring  for  their 
own  delightful  sakes.  Boiardo  and  Ariosto  were  also 
steeped  in  the  tales  of  Arthur's  Knights,  whose  curvetting 
careers  never  had  any  real  purpose  or  set  aim,  beyond  the 
joy  of  adventure  and  romantic  love.  Boiardo  first,  and 
following  him,  Ariosto,  wherever  the  Carolingian  cycle 
had  not  become  sufl^ciently  romantic,  could  readily  intro- 
duce Arthurian  adventure,  Arthurian  love  and  exquisite 
Arthurian  courtesy: 

Amore  e  quel  che  dona  la  vittoria 
E  dona  ardire  al  cavaliero  armato. 

This  chivalric  love  which  enveloped  Arthur's  court,  fur- 
nished a  leading  motive  in  the  composition  of  both  the 
Innamorato  and  the  Furioso.  Boiardo  was  a  leal-hearted 
gentleman,  with  whom  love  and  courtesy  were  moving 
sentiments.  The  quiet  humor,  which  was  also  his,  occa- 
sionally broadened  to  laughter  in  his  poem.  That  had  a 
sufficiently  insistent  plot.  Its  whole  matter,  antique, 
mediaeval,  or  invented  and  well  imagined  by  the  poet,  was 
made  into  an  artful  epic,  congruous  in  tone  and  color. 
Borrowed  strains  were  put  together  with  a  new  art,  and 
made  to  live  again  with  a  new  life. 

What  that  new  art  was,  and  whence  that  new  life  came, 


68  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

is  clearer  in  the  Orlando  Furioso.  This  was  the  last 
issue  of  the  late  antique  and  mediaeval  love-and-adven- 
ture  motive.  It  was  also  a  harmony  of  all  its  elements, 
and  a  perfected  work  of  art.  If  indeed  its  plot  seems  to 
take  up  with  each  new  fancy,  and  wander  over  the  fields  of 
the  imagination,  it  nevertheless  passes  very  happily  from 
field  to  forest,  and  over  seas  and  mountains,  and  even 
through  the  entertaining  and  instructive  regions  of  the 
moon.  Every  incident,  every  inwoven  tale,  is  aptly  placed 
and  happily  composed.  The  whole  forms  an  ample  can- 
vas of  delight;  no  mosaic  either,  but  a  v/ell  tempered  pic- 
ture, with  values  and  perspectives,  and  flooded  with  the 
atmosphere  of  high  romance.  And  what  compass  and 
inclusion!  Its  structure  was  of  mediaeval  legend;  it  car- 
ried easily  old  matter  from  classic  Greece  and  Rome,  from 
the  early  Christian  ages  too;  chivalry  was  there,  long  since 
emerged  from  the  dour  actuality  of  feudalism,  and  moving 
in  a  spacious  and  joyful  unreality,  such  as  never  was  nor 
could  ever  be,  yet  satisfying  to  the  whims  of  mortal 
fantasy.  This  still  will  hanker  for  a  magic  lance  to  over- 
throw foes  so  easily,  for  a  horn  to  scare  armies  from 
their  trenches,  a  ring  to  make  invisible,  a  hippogriph  to 
carry  one  to  the  moon;  and  for  the  chances  too  of 
draughts  from  fountains  of  quick  love  and  rude  aversion. 
Such  fantasy  would  have  youth  and  beauty  everywhere, 
with  love  and  wrath  and  courtesy,  and  delicious  fighting, 
best  joy  of  all. 

Over  all  his  scenes  the  poet  smiles  with  an  artist's  sym- 
pathy, and  with  an  irony  free  from  bitterness.  There  is 
neither  malice  nor  denunciation  in  his  satire,  but  sheer 
fun,  as  when  Michael  searches  the  cloisters  through  for 
Silence,  quite  in  vain^,  and  readily  finds  Discord;  or 
when  Astolfo  flies  to  the  moon  and  journeys  through  it 
seeking  the  lost  wits  of  Orlando,  finding  there  most  of 
his  own  as  well !      Forever  famous  stories ! 

Ariosto  wrote  his  poem  in  a  shattered  Italy.  How  he 
m.ust  have  taken  refuge  in  it!  It  had  the  truth  and  valid- 
ity of  art,  achieved  through  constantly  revising  labors. 
It  was  the  creation  of  an  untiring  genius,   which  had 


TASSO  69 

grasped  the  virtue  of  all  that  his  and  the  preceding  Italian 
generation  had  been  acquiring.  That  had  passed  Into 
the  strength  and  temperament  and  poetic  faculty  of 
Arlosto.  Touching  his  subject-matter,  how  could  he,  the 
poet-child  of  his  age,  have  treated  it  save  with  an  artist's 
sympathy  and  with  art's  Irony?  There  was  In  Italy  no 
deep  sentiment  of  chivalric  honor,  and  Httle  loyalty  to 
anything,  except  the  beauty  of  life  and  literature  and  art. 
The  Furioso  was  no  fierce  epic  of  crusading  faith,  or  of 
any  faith  at  all.  Its  spirit  was  as  the  spirit  of  the  time 
and  land,  playing  with  a  past  of  chivalry  which  had  never 
been  Italian,'  transforming  It  Into  a  poem.  Irony  was 
the  means  and  method  of  this  poet's  art.  Through  it 
alone  could  the  poem  be  true  to  the  convictions  and  lack 
of  convictions  of  the  poet  and  his  time.  For  the  poem 
was  the  poet's  truth;  his  aim,  to  make  it  fit,  delightful, 
beautiful.  Only  through  gentle  plastic  irony  could  he 
fashion  the  matter  of  his  subject  to  the  kind  of  epic  which 
Arlosto  In  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  under 
the  patronage  of  the  court  of  Ferrara,  could  create. 

Arlosto  died  in  1533.  Tasso,  born  eleven  years  after, 
closed  his  unhappy  eyes  in  1595.  But  his  work  had  been 
done  years  before.  He  had  written  his  smoothest  lyrics; 
the  lovely  pastoral  drama,  the  Jminta,  was  given  in  July, 
1573,  on  a  luxurious  island  in  the  Po  near  Ferrara;  and 
the  Gerusalemme  Uherata  was  completed  two  years  later. 
Ariosto's  Furioso  offered  the  still  surviving  truth  of  ar- 
tistic excellence.  Tasso,  with  a  different  temperament, 
was  separated  from  Arlosto  by  an  altered  time.  The 
moment  was  less  favorable  for  the  composition  of  a  ro- 
mantic epic.  Italy,  sombre  beneath  the  Spanish  pall, 
trembled  before  the  Inquisition  and  the  terror  of  the 
Turk,  while  dully  stiffening  her  sinews  with  the  revived 
and  sharply  defined  Catholicism  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 
Humane  literature  was  critical,  meticulous,  empty.  But 
a  genius  was  there  and  would  produce  a  poem,  despite  the 
stifling  environment  and  the  ligaments  of  criticism,  which 
the  poet*s  mind  accepted  too. 


70  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

For  Tasso  was  a  self-conscious  critic,  and  morbidly 
deferential  to  the  criticism  of  others,  as  well  as  fearful  of 
offending  the  Inquisition.  But,  at  least  in  his  young 
years,  he  was  an  unquenchable  and  incomparable  poet. 
He  was  gifted  with  melody  of  language,  and  an  imagina- 
tion overflowing  with  delightful  images.  Reading  had 
strengthened  his  mind  with  the  discipHne  of  classic  liter- 
ature, and  had  enriched  it  with  the  wealth  of  fable.  De- 
fining his  purpose  in  his  own  critical  prose,  he  said  that 
he  had  set  himself  the  task  of  composing  an  epic  having' 
its  unity  in  the  dominance  of  a  single  theme  or  "  action," 
but  diversified  by  chivalric  and  romantic  episode,  and  with 
every  incident  so  organically  interwoven  that  to  omit  a 
single  one  or  change  its  place  would  ruin  all.  The  poet's 
blood  was  warm;  he  drew  breath  in  the  sentiments  of  love 
and  passion;  he  delighted  in  the  bewitchments  of  romance, 
which  art  might  make  convincing.  He  was  a  potent  and 
very  conscious  artist. 

The  instant  peril  of  the  Turk  in  which  the  poet  lived, 
gave  him  his  theme,  the  First  Crusade.  His  chivalric 
and  romantic  power  rendered  the  theme  in  epically  splen- 
did verse,  and  festooned  it  with  enchanting  episodes.  As 
conceived  and  written,  the  poem  told  the  passions  and 
subtler  sentiments  of  love,  and  made  romance  and  en- 
chantments live  for  their  own  delightful  sake.  After- 
wards compunctions  seized  the  poet,  and  perhaps  fears 
touching  the  opinions  of  Inquisitors.  So  he  bethought 
him  of  allegory,  which  had  not  been  within  his  first  inten- 
tion. He  saved  his  enchanted  woods  and  gardens,  and 
the  molten  words  uttered  in  them,  by  moralizing  their 
significance.  He  even  imagined  a  concurrent  allegory  as 
the  spiritual  double  of  his  romantic  epic.^^  Such  in- 
vested meaning  was  not  far  to  seek;  for  he  could  draw  it 
from  his  own  deeply  moral  and  religious  nature. 

So  the  poem  passed  through  many  perils;  from  the 
critics  to  whom  Tasso  submitted  it,  from  his  own  morbid 

^2  See  the  "  discorso  proemiale "  to  Solerti's  critical  edition  of  the 
Gerusalemme  liberata,  vol.  I,  pp.  37  sqq.,  and  extracts  from  Tasso's  state- 
ments given  there. 


TASSO  71 

fears  and  the  qualms  of  rather  friendly  Inquisitors.  But 
it  was  saved,  and  was  to  live  for  the  world  in  its  unde- 
stroyed  charm  and  beauty.  Too  seriously  religious  for  a 
chivalric  romance,  too  flowering  wnth  romantic  episode  for 
an  epic,  it  still  shaped  its  variety  to  the  unity  of  a  pervad- 
ing nobility  of  statement  and  an  unfailing  music  of  diction. 
A  gentle  element  of  elegy  preserved  its  hardiest  episodes 
from  baseness.  The  result  was  something  as  uniquely 
beautiful  in  Italian  poetry  as  the  Faerie  Queen  in  English. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MACHIAVELLI   AND   GUICCIARDINI   AND   THEIR 
FORERUNNERS 

The  disllluslonments  and  civic  deterioration  which,  to 
some  extent,  were  both  the  cause  and  the  result  of  the 
stricken  state  of  Italy,  could  not  fail  to  impress  certain 
scholars  who  had  share  in  the  renewed  and  larger  inti- 
macy with  the  classics,  which  we  have  been  following. 
Such  would  naturally  consider  the  fortunes  of  their  cities 
in  the  light  of  their  classic  reading.  Ever  since  the  re- 
vival of  Justinian's  Digest  In  the  twelfth  century  by  the 
Bologna  School,  imperial  and  royal  statecraft  had  looked 
to  the  principles  of  the  Civil  Law;  and  since  the  time  of 
Aquinas  the  Politics  of  Aristotle  had  become  part  of  the 
political  consciousness  of  Europe.  Why  not  now  apply 
the  lessons  of  the  actual  political  experience  of  the  an- 
cients, as  well  as  their  civic  wisdom  more  formally  ex- 
pressed? So  it  seemed  at  least  to  Niccolo  Machlavelli, 
whose,  practically  instructed  yet  generalizing  genius  set 
itself  to  draw  from  Roman  history  the  closer  teaching  of 
the  actual  courses  of  affairs  at  Rome,  and  to  deduce  from 
them  the  imperative  logic  of  facts  —  the  forza  delle  cose. 
Such  lessons  and  examples  of  political  consequences  this 
Florentine  gathered  in  his  Discourses  upon  the  histories 
of  Livy,  and  brought  to  sharper,  but  more  questionable, 
expression  in  his  Prince. 


There  had  been  bold,  if  less  Instructed,  forerunners 
in  the  field  of  political  observation  and  theorizing.  The 
boldest  had  been  Nogaret,  a  Provencal  of  heretical  ex- 
traction; then  Pierre  Dubois,  a  Frenchman  and  interna- 

72  lr'^t*^.9^tfM^t;f  ■>'•..•       I     . 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  73 

tional  theorist;  there  had  been  the  Englishman  Occam, 
and  the  important  pair  of  co-workers,  John  of  Jandun 
and  Marsiglio  of  Padua. 

The  relation  of  the  Church  to  secular  government  was 
par  excellence  the  political  controversy  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  the  course  of  it,  the  claims  of  the  Papacy  were 
extended  to  a  universal  absolutism,  while  Emperors  and 
Kings  sought  to  maintain  their  co-ordinate  if  not  superior 
authority.  Unity  was  always  dear  to  mediaeval  thinking, 
and  thought  moved  in  allegories  as  readily  as  in  facts. 
Mankind  was  conceived  as  a  great  organism;  from  which 
idea  flowed  endless  allegory.  Disputants  in  the  contro- 
versy between  Pope  and  Emperor  argued  from  mankind 
as  a  mystical  body  whereof  the  head  was  Christ.  Should 
this  body  have  one  head  or  two,  the  papacy  alone,  or 
papacy  and  Empire?  Or  could  a  single  head  be  found 
above  the  two  in  Christ?  Thereupon  the  body-analogy 
was  carried  out  into  the  Imagined  details  of  physiological 
function.  Curiously  enough  the  most  elaborate  construc- 
tion of  the  allegory  comes  at  last  from  Nicholas  of  Cusa, 
whose  life  does  not  fall  within  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
whose  thoughts  presaged  much  that  came  to  expression 
in  the  years  following  his  death. ^ 

But  the  men  who  seem  more  like  Machiavelli's  prede- 
cessors cared  little  for  the  arguments  of  allegory;  and  as 
against  the  authority  of  the  Canon  Law  set  up  the  im- 
perial law  of  Rome.  They  were  actors  or  pleaders  in 
two  notable  political  conflicts  which  marked  the  passing 
of  mediaeval  politics.  In  the  first,  the  national  French 
monarchy  under  Philip  the  Fair  broke  the  power  of  the 
universal  papal  monarchy  under  Boniface  VIII :  the  sec- 
ond was  that  noisy  battle  between  the  Avignonese  Pope, 
John  XXII,  and  the  would-be  Emperor,  Louis  of  Bavaria. 

It  was  in  1302  that  Philip  summoned  the  States  Gen- 
eral In  order  to  assure  himself  that  the  French  nation 
stood  behind  him  In  his  struggle  with  the  indomitable  and 
raging  octogenarian  Boniface.     Assured  of  his  subjects, 

»  Cf.  posU  Chapter  XXX. 


74  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

he  won  the  victory  through  his  lawyer  ministers,  who  up- 
held the  royal  claims  with  the  authority  of  the  civil  law. 
Among  them  was  Guillaume  de  Nogaret,  learned,  astute, 
and  daring  beyond  the  thoughts  of  others.  Armed  with 
a  letter  of  credit  and  some  royal  vague  authority,  Nogaret 
went  with  one  or  two  confidential  aids  to  Italy.  His  pur- 
pose w^as  to  kidnap  the  Pope  and  carry  him  to  Lyons. 
He  enlisted  Sciarra  Colonna  and  other  desperate  charac- 
ters in  the  plot,  and  in  September,  1303,  made  the  famous 
attempt  at  Anagni,  the  Pope's  natal  town,  where  the  aged 
despot  was  staying  at  the  papal  palace,  and  was  just 
about  to  launch  against  Philip  a  final  bull  of  excommuni- 
cation and  dethronement.  It  was  never  launched.  No- 
garet and  his  fellows  broke  in,  seized  and  insulted  and 
made  a  prisoner  of  Boniface.  To  carry  him  off  to  Lyons 
was  absurdly  beyond  their  power,  and  they  were  soon 
fleeing  for  life;  but  his  authority  was  broken,  and  within 
a  fortnight  he  died  In  senile  rage.  Nogaret  and  the  King 
afterwards  forced  this  pope's  successor  to  anathematize 
his  memory,  and  free  from  his  excommunications  the  dese- 
crators  of  the  papacy.^ 

No  literal  dare-devil  like  Nogaret,  another  legist, 
Pierre  Dubois,  devised  a  rather  far-off  scheme,  in  which 
the  rights  of  kings  should  be  exalted,  peace  assured  among 
Christian  peoples,  the  papacy  be  put  in  its  right  place, 
and  the  Holy  Land  recovered  from  the  infidels.  He 
called  his  work  De  Reciiperatione  Terre  Sancte.^  It  ad- 
vocated peace  among  Christian  princes  as  the  first  step 
toward  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Land,  the  nominal  ob- 
ject of  the  book.  There  should  be  a  council  of  the 
princes  and  the  pope,  to  adjust  all  differences.  Whoever 
breaks  the  peace  by  war  with  brother  Catholics  shall  be 
punished  by  the  pope,  but  not  excommunicated,  since  that 

2  The  whole  story  of  Nogaret  is  told  with  consummate  skill  by  Renan 
in  his  contribution  to  the  Histoire  Utteraire  de  la  France,  Tome  XXVII ; 
republished  in  £tudes  sur  la  politique  religieuse  de  Philippe  le  Bel 
(Paris  1899). 

3  Written  probably  in  1306;  edited  in  Collection  de  Textes,  etc.,  by 
Langlois  (Paris  1891).  See  also  Renan,  Pierre  Dubois,  in  the  same  volume 
with  his  Nogaret.  In  his  youth,  Dubois  heard  both  Aquinas  and  his 
Averroist  opponent  Siger  at  Paris.     H?  mentions  Roger  Bacon, 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  7^ 

is  merely  to  augment  the  number  of  damned  souls,  and  is 
less  efficacious  than  temporal  punishments.  In  the  case 
of  disputes  between  potentates  who  acknowledge  no  su- 
perior, the  Council  shall  appoint  arbitrators  to  hear  and 
determine.^ 

The  work  proceeds,  devising  reforms  and  remedies  for 
political  ills.  For  example:  Since,  the  possession  and 
government  of  the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter  has  caused  so 
many  wars,  the  pope  should  hand  it  over  to  some  secular 
potentate  in  return  for  a  fixed  charge  payable  to  him  in 
some  place  he  shall  select;  the  revenues  of  the  Cardinals, 
which  are  far  beyond  their  needs,  should  in  part  be  applied 
to  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Land;  the  temporalities  of 
bishops  and  other  secular  clergy,  as  well  as  of  the  regu- 
lar orders,  should  be  turned  over  to  lay  management,  in 
return  for  a  suitable  fixed  income;  the  celibacy  of  the 
clergy  is  undesirable;  schools  for  the  instruction  of  girls 
should  be  established,  and  the  present  revenues  of  the 
nunneries  applied  to  their  support.  Dubois  did  not  balk 
at  the  thought  of  tearing  down  and  building  anew:  "  It 
is  scarcely  possible  to  discover  anything  in  this  world  that 
will  prove  good  and  desirable  in  every  time  and  place  and 
for  all  people.  So  the  laws  should  vary  with  places,  times 
and  people.  Many  philosophers  have  taught  the  expe- 
diency of  this,  and  the  Lord  and  Master  of  all  sciences, 
and  of  the  Holy  Fathers  and  the  philosophers,  has  not 
feared  to  proclaim  it,  since  many  things  which  He  ap- 
pointed in  the  Old  Testament  He  changed  in  the  New."  ^ 

The  victory  of  Philip  and  the  fatal  migration  to  Avig- 
non marked  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  papacy's 
spiritual  headship  of  western  Europe.     Its  prestige  was 

*  In  these  days  of  a  League  of  Peace  the  passage  is  of  interest:  .  .  . 
quod  concilium  statuat  arbitros  religiosos  aut  alios  eligendos,  viros  pru- 
dentes  et  expertos  ac  fideles,  qui  jurati  tres  judices  prelatos  et  tres  alios 
pro  utraque  parte,  locupletes,  et  tales  quod  sit  verisimile  ipsos  non  posse 
corrumpi  amore,  odio,  timore,  concupiscentia,  vel  alias,  qui  convenientes 
in  loco  ad  hoc  aptiori,  jurati  strictissime,  datis  antequam  conveniant 
articulis  petitionum  et  defensionum  singularum,  summarie  et  de  piano, 
rejectis  primo  superfluis  et  ineptis,  testes  et  instrumenta  recipiant,  diligen- 
tissime  examinent.  De  Recup.  §  12.  If  one  of  the  parties  rejects  the 
award  the  matter  may  be  sent  to  the  Pope. 

^  De  Recup.  §  48,  p.  39  of  Langlois'  edition;  also  cited  by  Renan. 


76  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTUkY 

impaired  forever;  legitimate  reasons  for  its  universal  au- 
thority could  not  continue  In  a  predominantly  French  city, 
with  no  tradition  behind  It.  There  was  danger  lest  the 
papacy  become  a  French  appanage.  Its  revenues  de- 
creased, and  the  means  to  which  the  Avignon  popes  re- 
sorted to  recruit  their  finances  strengthened  the  opposition 
to  their  claims.  The  Minorite  Order  was  estranged  by  a 
bitter  polemic  concerning  the  poverty  of  Christ  and  all 
true  Christians.  Moreover,  the  growing  force  of  nation- 
ality was  inimical  to  church  unity;  while  the  revivified  an- 
tique conception  of  the  State  countered  the  papal  authority 
In  men's  minds.  There  seemed  no  longer  any  need  for 
the  universal  papal  tutelage,  maintained  so  usefully 
through  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Great  Schism  which 
broke  out  upon  the  return  of  Urban  VI  to  Rome,  and 
lasted  from  1378  to  14 17,  was  not  merely  the  adventi- 
tious and  deplorable  result  of  an  angry  clash  of  tempers 
and  interests  between  that  intemperate  pope  and  his 
worldly  Cardinals,  who  were  mostly  French.  It  sprang 
from  the  stay  at  Avignon,  and  from  all  the  forces  and 
conditions  which  had  compelled  that  sojourn.  Indeed  as 
one  reflects  upon  the  energies  of  national  growth  which 
were  to  break  this  pope-dominated  Church  unity,  one 
comes  to  view  the  whole  Avignon  episode,  with  the  de- 
pendence of  the  popes  on  France,  their  hostility  to  the 
Empire,  their  weakness,  the  Great  Schism,  and  all  that  it 
brought  forth,  as  necessitated  under  peculiarly  obvious 
compulsion. 

The  conflict  which  those  partisans  of  France,  John 
XXII  (13 16-1334),  Benedict  XII  (1334-1342),  and 
Clement  VI  (1342-1352),  waged  against  the  German 
Empire,  under  Louis  of  Bavaria,  was  a  noisy  battle.  Al- 
though Louis's  unsteady  nature  brought  upon  him  dis- 
grace and  defeat,  victory  proved  pernicious  to  the  papacy, 
by  aggravating  its  French  bias,  and  by  stiffening  its 
secularization  to  the  detriment  of  Its  spiritual  authority. 
The  papal  victory  was  a  victory  only  over  '*  the  Empire," 
an  idea  to  which  no  actual  might  of  arms  and  loyalty  re- 
sponded.    But  there  were  powerful  German  princes,  Ger- 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  77 

man  cities,  and  a  German  people,  all  becoming  alienated 
from  the  papacy. 

In  this  last  lost  battle  of  "  the  Empire,"  the  champions 
of  the  State  set  forth  arguments  which  anticipated  later 
thinking.  Occam,  a  fearless  scholastic  destroyer  and  in- 
itiator, took  his  stand  against  the  papacy's  worldly  lord- 
ship and  the  pope's  supremacy  in  matters  of  the  faith. 
More  effective  enemies  of  the  papacy  were  Marsiglio  of 
Padu?.  and  John  of  Jandun.  Something  is  known  of  each 
of  them.  John  of  Jandun  was  clever,  a  learned  Aristo- 
telian, and  withal  a  sensitive  soul,  as  appears  from  his 
appreciation  of  the  charms  of  Senlls,  where  he  lived  for 
a  time;  and  then  from  his  vivid  sketch  of  the  Impression 
made  on  his  provincial  eye  by  Paris,  with  its  motley  street- 
life,  its  overwhelming  cathedral  —  terribilissima,  and  yet 
such  that  the  soul  knows  no  satiety  in  gazing  —  and 
above  all  with  Its  glorious  university.  Paris  then,  as 
now,  was  the  city  of  the  mind,  as  this  scholar  realized.^ 
But  with  his  eye  fixed  also  on  advancement,  he  did  not 
refrain  from  fulsome  praise  of  Charles  le  Bel,  whose 
deafness  to  his  by  no  means  mute  appeal  turned  John 
eventually  to  the  service  of  the  German  monarch. 

This  was  in  1323,  and  within  a  year  John  had  helped 
his  greater  friend  Marsiglio  to  achieve  that  veritable 
hammer  of  the  papacy,  the  Defensor  Pads.  Marsiglio, 
in  quest  of  emolument  and  fame,  had  reached  Paris  more 
than  ten  years  before,  and  had  been  honored  with  the 
post  of  rector  of  the  University.  From  a  poem  by  his 
friend,  the  Paduan  Mussato,  he  seems  to  have  been 
trained  In  medicine  and  physics,  and  exceedingly  bent  on 
self-advancement.  He  also  made  the  trip  to  Avij^non, 
and  both  he  and  John  obtained  favors  from  John  XXII, 
before  they  composed  their  book.  There  Is  no  means 
of  determlninfy  the  share  of  each  In  the  work,  though  one 
m.av  surmise  that  John  supplied  the  Aristotelian  learnlnfi:, 
and  Marsiglio  the  constructive  plan  and  the  envenomed 

^  V^hat  is  known  of  John  of  Jandun  (and  of  his  De  Laudihus  Parislus) 
as  well  as  of  Marsiglio,  is  skillfully  put  together  in  Tome  XXXIII  (1906) 
of  the  Histoire  litteraire  de  la  Trance,  pp.  528-623. 


78  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

thought  that  the  papacy  was  In  Its  very  nature  the  chief 
disturber  of  that  peace  of  the  world  which  it  was  the  aim 
of  the  Defensor  Pads  to  establish.  As  the  decades  wore 
on  after  their  deaths,  fame  ascribed  the  leading  role  to 
Marslgllo."^ 

Divided  into  three  parts,  the  work  sets  forth  in  logi- 
cal continuity  the  authors'  conception  of  the  State,  then 
their  ideas  of  the  Church  and  its  relations  to  the  State, 
and  finally  the  conclusions  from  their  argument.  Peace 
is  society's  sovereign  boon:  the  chief  disturber  Is  the 
papacy.  The  Church  should  be  made  Into  a  properly 
subordinated  department  or  function  of  the  State.  This 
is   the   burden   of   the   argument  of   this   lengthy   book.^ 

"^  As  to  the  critical  insight  of  our  authors,  the  worst  that  can  be  said  is 
that  neither  perceived  that  the  "  Donation  of  Constantine,"  which  they 
discussed  and  sought  to  minimize,  was  a  forgery. 

s  The  usual,  though  unsatisfactory,  edition  is  in  Goldast's  De  Monarchia, 
II,  folio  154-312.  Some  of  the  points  of  the  argument  are  as  follows; 
According  to  Scripture  as  well  as  Aristotle,  the  maker  or  primary  eifective 
cause  of  law  is  the  people  or  its  duly  chosen  better  part  (pars  valentior). 
Def.  Pacis  I,  12.  The  people  may  express  its  will  directly  or  through 
representatives;  it  appoints  the  executive,  that  is,  the  Ruler,  and  may 
depose  him.  The  ruler  is  a  part  of  the  greater  whole, —  pars  principans; 
he  is  bound  by  the  laws,  and  his  government  will  be  best  as  it  best  con- 
forms to  the  will  and  consent  subditorum  suorum.  Marsiglio  thought  that 
the  whole  multitude,  because  comprising  the  more  intelligent  part,  was 
as  capable  of  wise  legislation  as  the  intelligent  part  acting  alone.  It  is 
for  the  ruler  to  appoint  and  direct  all  public  functionaries  according  to 
law.  For  the  preservation  of  order  he  should  have  at  his  disposal  a 
moderate  military  force,  but  not  enough  to  make  him  a  tyrant.  Marsiglio 
advocates  an  elective  monarchy,  and  his  arguments  lead  on  to  the  final 
conclusion  of  Part  One,  that  political  disturbances  are  due  to  the  improper 
claims  and  actions  of  the  papacy,  striving  for  control,  instead  of  permitting 
the  Church  to  subordinate  itself  to  the  State  of  which  it  is  a  part.  He 
sets  forth  the  successive  papal  usurpations.  He  doubts  whether  Peter 
ever  was  in  Rome,  and  argues  that  in  any  case  he  had  no  greater  au- 
thority than  the  other  apostles.  The  constitution  of  the  papal  hierarchy 
is  examined  and  its  secular  authority  disproved.  This  is  the  second  part 
of  the  Defensor.  The  last  part  states  conclusions:  The  People  are  the 
ultimate  human  sovereign.  They  legislate  through  their  chosen  repre- 
sentatives; unanimity  being  an  impractical  demand,  a  majority  vote  is 
valid;  the  ruler  is  the  people's  executive,  answerable  to  the  laws;  the 
priesthood  has  only  spiritual  authority;  it  is  subject  to  human  laws; 
priests  and  bishops  should  be  chosen  by  the  people;  the  Church  should  own 
nothing,  and  have  the  use  only  of  necessities;  the  primac}^  of  the  Popes 
can  properly  rest  only  on  the  delegation  of  power  by  a  Council;  the 
Bible  is  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  Councils,  not  popes, 
should  decide  points  of  doctrine;  only  the  community  or  the  Council  can 
excommunicate;  heretics  should  be  punished  only  when  they  transgress 
human  laws:  no  one  should  be  forced  in  his  belief;   (Def.  Pac.  II,  9)  men 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  79 

A  year  or  two  after  the  composition  of  the  Defensor 
Pads,  its  authors  presented  themselves  with  their  book  at 
the  Court  of  Louis  of  Bavaria.  They  were  his  counsel- 
lors during  his  descent  into  Italy.  His  coronation  at 
Rome,  where  he  received  from  the  hands  of  a  Colonna 
the  crown  bestowed  by  the  Roman  People,  his  creation 
of  an  anti-pope,  and  other  acts  of  his  in  Italy,  carried 
out  the  principles  of  the  Defensor  Pads.  Apparently 
the  Emperor  made  John  of  Jandun,  bishop  of  Ferrara, 
and  Marsiglio,  archbishop  of  Milan;  but  whether  they 
actually  enjoyed  these  princely  offices  is  doubtful.  Tur- 
moil and  trouble  resulted  from  Louis's  Italian  expedition, 
till  that  weak  personage  was  driven  to  make  his  peace 
with  the  pope,  and  vow  to  punish  these  heretics,  John 
and  Marsiglio.  This  was  in  1336;  but  John  had  in  fact 
died  long  before;  and  Marsiglio  seems  to  have  continued 
in  Louis's  service  as  late  as  1342. 

The  Defensor  Pads  did  not  die  with  its  authors.  To 
the  popes  it  was  a  stumbling  block  and  scandal,  worthy 
of  repeated  condemnation;  while  to  men  who  opposed  the 
papacy  it  remained  a  store  of  living  arguments.  A  papal 
bull  of  1377  declared  that  Wyclif  took  his  heresies  from 
it.  Through  the  Great  Schism  and  the  Conciliar  move- 
ment, men  drew  on  it.  Nicholas  of  Cusa  used  it  in  his 
De  Concordantia  Catholica  (1431);  Matthew  Doring 
drew  from  it  in  his  Confutatio  Primatus  Papae  (1443). 
Later  still,  Luther  apparently  used  it  and  other  Protestant 
leaders,  possibly  even  Calvin.^ 


II 

Marsiglio  and  these  other  fourteenth  century  publicists 
were  students  of  antiquity  and  observers  of  affairs.  To 
them  the  papacy  was  an  obstacle  to  the  peace  and  welfare 
of  the  world.      Keenest  of  Italian  haters  of  the  papacy, 

should  not  be  held  to  the  Mosaic  law,  but  only  to  the  precepts  of  the  New 
Testament.  Cf.  Riezler,  Die  literarischen  Widersacher  der  Papste,  p.  225 
sgg.  (Leipsic  1874). 

9  See  James   Sullivan   in   American   Hist.   Revieiv,  Vol.   II,    (1896-97); 
also  Hist.  lit.  de  la  France,  T.  XXXIII,  p.  622. 


8o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Machlavelli  also  gained  his  knowledge  of  politics  from 
his  experience  of  affairs  and  a  constant  study  of  antiquity. 
The  writings  of  the  ancients  furnished  him  with  ideas, 
and  suggestions  for  their  expression.  With  matter  from 
his  own  genius,  he  still  largely  expresses  himself  through 
the  thoughts  of  the  old  writers,  and  conforms  his  argu- 
ment to  the  events  of  ancient  history.  In  his  dedication 
of  The  Prince,  he  presents  to  Lorenzo,  grandson  of  the 
Magnificent,  this  most  precious  "  cognizione  delle  azioni 
degli  uomini  grandi,  imparata  da  me  con  una  lunga  spe- 
rienza  delle  cose  moderne,  ed  una  continova  lezione  delle 
antiche." 

Born  in  Florence  in  1469,  he  received  the  usual  educa- 
tion of  the  son  of  a  respectable  family.  The  first  real 
news  of  him  is  from  a  letter  written  in  his  thirtieth  year, 
maintaining  the  rights  of  his  family  to  the  patronage  of 
a  certain  church.  Savonarola  was  burned  in  the  piazza 
on  the  twenty-third  of  May,  1498,  and  soon  afterwards, 
the  Republic  of  Florence,  being  engaged  in  the  long  strug- 
gle to  reconquer  Pisa,  employed  Machlavelli  as  secre- 
tary to  the  Ten.  He  was  briskly  occupied  in  the  Pisan 
war,  as  appears  by  his  Discorso  sopra  le  cose  di  Pisa. 
Next,  the  Republic  sent  him  with  another  on  a  mission 
to  placate  the  temper  of  Louis  XII  of  France,  ruffled 
at  the  lack  of  progress  of  the  war,  in  which  his  mercenary 
Swiss  had  played  no  glorious  role.  Their  conduct,  ap- 
parently, convinced  Machlavelli  that  a  State's  only  sure 
defence  is  its  own  citizen  soldiery — if  such  soldiery 
would  only  fight! 

He  was  sent  the  next  year  to  Duke  Valentino,  com- 
monly called  Cesare  Borgia,  whose  doings  were  causing 
anxiety  to  Florence.  After  this.  In  1502,  the  people  of 
the  Val  di  Chiana,  and  more  especially  the  townsfolk  of 
Arezzo,  rebelling,  this  thoughtful  secretary  sought  to  ap- 
ply the  lessons  of  Roman  experience.  In  his  paper  on  Hoiv 
to  treat  the  rebel  peoples  of  the  Val  di  Chiana.  "  Lucius 
Furlus  Camlllus,"  he  began,  ''  having  conquered  the  rebel- 
lious peoples  of  Latlum,  entered  the  Senate  and  said:  I 
have  done  what  Is  possible  through  war;  It  is  now  for 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  8i 

you,  Conscript  Fathers,  to  ensure  the  quiet  of  these  rebels 
in  the  future."  And  the  Senate  generously  pardoned  the 
conquered,  making  an  exception  only  "  of  two  cities,  one 
of  which  they  demolished,  and  in  the  other  replaced  the 
inhabitants  with  men  faithful  to  Rome."  With  such  an 
effective  policy  as  this,  Machiavelli  contrasts  the  folly  of 
half-measures,  especially  making  the  point  that  while  the 
Florentines  had  done  so  much  to  persecute  and  anger  the 
people  of  Arezzo,  they  had  left  the  city  intact,  and  a 
source  of  danger  to  Florence. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1502,  Machiavelli  was  again  sent 
to  Duke  Valentino  in  the  Romagna,  to  watch  his  move- 
ments and  report,  a  delicate  and  perilous  task.  He  came 
to  admire  this  fearless  and  unscrupulous  man,  and  took 
many  lessons  to  himself  from  his  acts  and  bold  successes, 
and  at  last  from  his  downfall  through  the  unexpected  con- 
junction of  two  facts,  the  death  of  his  father.  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI,  and  his  own  desperate  illness  at  the  time. 
From  these  missions,  and  others  to  Pope  Julius  II, 
Machiavelli  gained  knowledge  of  political  affairs;  and  in 
1506  and  1507  he  realized  his  darling  project  of  a  Flor- 
entine citizen  militia;  but  what  it  would  accomplish  was 
still  hidden!  There  were  yet  more  missions  before  him, 
to  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  and  to  France;  and  he  was 
otherw^ise  kept  busy  in  the  affairs  of  the  Republic. 

Things  were  confused  and  violent  in  Italy;  with  leagues 
and  breakings  of  them,  as  well  as  fighting,  among  Im- 
perialists and  French,  and  Pope  Julius  II,  protagonist  in 
the  restless  strife.  Machiavelli  proved  himself  an  apt 
diplomat,  appearing  at  his  best  in  his  letters  and  reports. 
His  acuteness  of  Intellect  exceeded  his  powers  of  action, 
and  even  his  skill  in  devising  efficient  measures.  Like 
Italy  herself,  he  was  a  mind,  understanding  much,  seem- 
ingly unprejudiced  and  clear-seeing.  His  own  Florence 
was  Involved  In  politics  beyond  the  control  of  a  rather 
Impotent  Republic  honey-combed  with  Medicean  Influ- 
ences. The  Spaniards  were  approaching;  Prato  was 
sacked,  Florence  came  to  terms;  she  was  In  fact  in  the 
power  of  the  Medici  before  their  palpable  restoration. 


82  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  heads  of  the  house  were  Cardinal  Giovanni  (after- 
wards Pope  Leo  X)  and  his  brother  Giuhano,  sons  of 
the  Magnificent.  As  for  Machiavelli,  if  he  entertained 
hopes  of  a  Repubhc  under  the  Medici,  with  himself  an 
active  official  in  the  same,  he  was  to  be  disappointed. 
Just  what  he  did  and  said  in  those  trying  times  is  not  as 
clear  as  what  was  done  to  him;  for  in  November,  15 12, 
he  was  stripped  of  all  his  offices,  constrained  in  his  lib- 
erty, and  the  next  year,  being  in  some  way  compromised 
by  a  conspiracy  against  the  Medici,  he  was  imprisoned 
and  examined  under  torture.  He  was  soon  released,  but 
write  and  speak  and  flatter  as  he  might,  he  was  not  taken 
into  their  confidence  nor  given  employment.  It  was  only 
many  years  afterwards,  in  1526  and  1527,  when  his  life 
was  closing,  and  the  affairs  of  Italy  were  hopeless,  that 
Machiavelli,  with  busy  patriotism,  again  circulated  among 
the  men  and  things  he  could  not  influence.  Shortly  after 
the  sack  of  Rome,  he  died  broken-hearted  over  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  land  and  the  realization  that  his  Florence 
did  not  desire  his  services,  although  the  Medici  had  been 
again  expelled.  It  was  in  the  intervening  years  of  rus- 
tication and  straitened  inactivity  at  his  villa  in  the  Flor- 
entine contado,  that  this  man  who  never  was  of  great 
importance  in  affairs,  produced  the  works  which  assured 
him  a  permanent  position  among  the  world's  publicists. 

From  the  days  of  Rome,  the  quick  Italian  mind  had 
never  been  unoccupied  with  politics.  Italian  cities  were 
the  homes  of  political  discussion,  as  well  as  conflict. 
What  politicians  were  the  Medici  and  many  of  the  Popes! 
And  that  great  reforming  Friar,  Savonarola,  who  looked 
through  shows  and  shams  to  sheer  reality,  which  might 
be  clothed  for  him  in  the  mystic  light  of  holiness,  had  a 
shrewd  mind  for  practical  measures  of  government. 
The  constitution  adopted  by  Florence  in  1494-5,  so 
largely  following  the  recommendations  of  Savonarola, 
was  excellent,  and  his  tax  reforms  became  the  enduring 
basis  of  a  system  tolerable  for  centuries.  He  looked  to 
the  Venetian  Constitution  as  a  model.     Its  stability  and 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  83 

efficiency  had  long  excited  admiration,  and  were  yet  to 
endure  for  the  wonder  of  centuries. 

The  Venetian  ambassadors  were  noted  for  their  re- 
ports to  their  government  of  what  they  saw  and  heard 
in  foreign  courts.  These  were  veritable  sources  of  po- 
litical suggestion  and  enlightenment.  Ambassadors  or 
lesser  emissaries  from  other  Italian  cities  made  like  re- 
ports. Machiavelli's  were  clear  and  penetrating,  but 
none  equalled  those  which  his  younger  Florentine  con- 
temporary, Guicciardini,  sent  from  Spain,  or  there  wrote 
down  for  his  own  and  others'  information.  They  con- 
tained detailed  accounts  of  the  general  and  particular 
conditions  of  that  land,  its  inhabitants  and  customs,  re- 
sources and  military  power.  Guicciardini  w^as  a  match- 
less observer  of  the  concrete  human  fact.  Machiavelli's 
observations  might  be  deflected  to  the  constructive  uses  of 
his  thoughts.  While  the  insight  of  two  men  may  be 
equal,  they  will  nevertheless  see  and  treat  facts  differently 
when  one  is  interested  in  their  practical  bearing  and  the 
other  treats  them  as  material  for  intellectual  construction. 
Guicciardini  never  would  have  reasoned  from  the  career 
of  Cesare  Borgia,  as  Machiavelli  did  in  The  Prince. 
The  latter  was  at  his  best  when  analyzing  the  records  of 
history,  and  drawing  general  inferences  from  them,  as  in 
his  Discorsi  sopra  la  prima  deca  di  Tito  Livio}^ 

Machiavelli  was  not  a  close  professional  student,  but 
a  constructive  thinker.  In  critical  knowledge,  he  was, 
for  instance,  far  inferior  to  Valla,  who  had  noticed  some 
of  Livy's  inconsistencies,  and  would  not  have  casually 
■referred  to  the  new  city  built  by  Aeneas,  as  Machiavelli 
did.  The  latter's  mind  was  not  fixed  upon  such  investi- 
gations. He  accepted  Livy  implicitly.  Yet  one  will  rec- 
ognize the  originality  of  his  analysis  of  situations  and 
results,  and  may  conclude  that  it  would  be  hard  to  find, 
all  things  considered,  a  more  interesting  consideration  of 
the  causes  of  the  greatness  of  the  Roman  Republic,  than 

10  There  is  an  English  translation  of  the  Discorsi  by  N,  H.  Thompson 
(Kegan  Paul  Trench  &  Co.,  1883). 


84  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

these  Discorsi.  Their  view  of  human  nature  and  its  mo- 
tives may  be  unsatisfactory,  yet  none  can  fail  to  see  the 
large  validity  of  the  author's  consideration  of  the  human 
motives  and  grounds  of  action  which  must  be  reckoned 
with  by  those  whose  business  is  with  the  welfare  and  sta- 
bility of  states.  His  method  is  to  establish  general 
principles  of  action  drawn  as  inductions  from  the  teach- 
ing of  history,  of  Roman  history  above  all. 

The  preface  notes  that  In  law  and  medicine,  people  still 
follow  what  the  ancients  arrived  at  through  experience; 
but  in  conducting  the  affairs  of  Republics  and  Kingdoms, 
the  teachings  of  ancient  history  are  ignored,  as  if  men 
and  their  physical  surroundings  were  not  still  the  same. 
At  the  beginning  of  Book  I,  the  author  sketches  the  foun- 
dation of  states,  refers  to  the  creation  by  Lycurgus  of  a 
'*  mixed  government,"  as  tending  to  ensure  stability. 
Romulus,  on  the  other  hand,  founded  a  monarchy;  "  but 
that  which  at  Rome  the  legislator  did  not  provide  for, 
followed  through  the  forza  naturale  of  things  and 
through  good  fortune.  The  Insolence  of  the  King 
brought  a  government  of  consuls  and  optimates,  and  the 
insolence  of  the  last  let  in  the  people  to  a  share  of  power, 
but  without  overthrowing  either  the  consuls  or  the  opti- 
mates." 

Machiavelll  drew  the  substance  of  these  remarks  from 
a  translation  of  Polyblus.  But  he  soon  develops  inde- 
pendently the  assumption  that  all  men  are  bad,  and  act 
viciously  when  not  restrained  by  laws,  an  idea,  close 
enough  to  certain  mediaeval  clerical  views  touching  the 
origins  of  secular  governments.  "  Men  never  do  good 
except  through  necessity,"  says  Machiavelll.  And  along 
this  line,  he  argues  that  the  dissensions  between  the  Sen- 
ate and  the  Plebs  made  the  Roman  Republic  free  and 
pov/erful;  yet  his  argument  indicates  that  much  of  this 
good  effect  was  due  to  the  self-control  exercised  In  the 
course  of  these  dissensions.  Nevertheless  he  shows  that 
the  elimination  of  these  tumults  would  have  impeded 
Rome's  march  to  greatness,  adding  the  remark  that  "  in 
all  human  affairs  one  evil  cannot  be  abolished  without 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  85 

another  arising."  It  Is  impossible  to  adjust  matters  sat- 
isfactorily once  for  all.  "  Human  affairs  being  in  mo- 
tion, and  unable  to  rest  as  they  are,  they  must  either  rise 
or  fall;  and  necessity  leads  you  to  measures  to  which  rea- 
son would  not  have  led  you." 

Machiavelli's  purpose  in  the  Discorsi  was  to  elicit  the 
working  verities  of  Roman  history  applicable  In  the  con- 
struction of  rules  of  political  action  for  the  princes  and 
statesmen  of  his  day.  He  sought  its  poUtical  rather  than 
moral  teaching;  and  there  may  have  been  an  intellectual 
blunder  in  his  not  realizing  that  the  "  political  "  and  the 
"  moral  "  are  but  different  sides  of  the  complex  of  social 
well-being.  Possibly  there  were  Inconsistencies  in  his 
view  of  the  State  and  human  welfare,  attributable  to  the 
weakness  of  his  will  and  purpose, —  an  individual  weak- 
ness analogous  to  the  Impotence  of  an  Italy  equipped 
with  intelligence  and  knowledge,  possessed  of  physical 
strength  and  material  resources,  and  yet  crushed  by  brutal 
forces  from  without,  which  In  some  way  drove  on  with 
a  will  to  grasp  and  get.  Machiavelli,  without  the 
strength  of  purpose  which  unifies  a  man's  thinking,  was 
impelled  to  seek  the  rule  of  action  seemingly  applying 
to  the  case  In  hand,  and  valid  for  all  other  similar  cases. 
His  furthest  Intellectual  end  and  practical  object  all  in 
one,  was  validity,  pragmatic  truth,  verita  effettuale,  the 
rule  that  may  be  acted  on  successfully.  Such  a  rule  must, 
of  course,  recognize  facts,  and  the  forces  of  events,  the 
physical  logic  of  a  situation.  It  must  be  built  out  of  such 
logic,  be  a  true  reflex  or  recognition  of  force  in  action, 
that  is  of  all  the  forces  making  and  controlling  the  sit- 
uation. Possibly  Machiavelli's  intellectual  pragmatism, 
which  of  course  took  no  thought  of  absolute  truth  or 
underlying  being,  was  to  find  Its  counterpart  in  those 
sixteenth  century  philosophies  and  systems  of  physics, 
which  were  substituting  force  for  matter  as  their  funda- 
mental conception. ^^  In  this  way,  also,  his  consideration 
of  politics  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  states,  had  in  it  some- 
thing that  is  represented  In  all  modern  thought. 

11  Post,  chapter  XXXIV. 


%  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Through  the  Discorsi,  through  The  Prince  as  well, 
Machlavelli's  personal  or  temperamental  convictions  af- 
fect the  logic  with  which  he  construes  a  situation  and  its 
necessary  consequences.  His  underlying  conviction, 
readily  to  be  gathered  from  antiquity,  is  that  the  state  — 
patria,  his  Italian  heart  loves  to  call  it  —  is  of  first  im- 
portance and  utterly  supreme  above  all  its  citizens:  its 
ends,  its  mere  advantage,  overrides  individual  interest 
and  private  morality.  Religion,  a  Church,  is  well;  may 
even  be  necessary;  but  it  should  be  in  all  respects  sub- 
ordinate to  the  patria,  and  promote  its  well-being.  He  is 
also  convinced,  or  at  least  feels,  that  a  republic  where 
men  are  in  some  way  free  and  equal,  is  better  than  a 
kingdom  or  tyranny.  Italy  is  the  patria  of  his  mind; 
would  it  were  united  in  patriotism !  The  cause  of  its  dis- 
union, of  its  weakness,  of  much  of  its  corruption  is,  and 
through  the  centuries  has  been,  the  papacy. 

The  essence  of  Italy's  impotence  and  corruption  is  the 
selfishness  of  individuals,  their  lack  of  corporate  patriot- 
ism, whereby  a  citizen  forgets  private  gain  and  private 
hate,  and  is  quick  to  risk  life  and  fortune  for  the  common 
weal.  There  could  be  no  mutual  dependence  in  an  Italy 
where  there  was  no  common  bravery,  which  is  strength. 
He  had  proved  again  and  again  that  the  strength  of  a 
land  does  not  lie  in  its  fortresses,  nor  in  its  material  re- 
sources and  money,  with  which  to  hire  mercenaries;  it  lies 
in  the  patriotic  valor  of  its  people. ^^  Such  patriotic  valor 
is  good,  since  it  is  the  means  by  which  the  patria  at- 
tains its  ends,  or  maintains  them.  So  with  great  indi- 
viduals, kindness  and  humanity  are  good  qualities,  which 

12  See  Discorsi  II.,  24.  In  Chap.  36  of  B'k  III  of  the  Discorsi  Machia- 
velli  speaks  of  three  kinds  of  armies,  the  first  and  best  possessing  valor 
(furore)  and  discipline  (ordine),  by  which  valor  is  made  firm;  the  second 
has  valor,  like  the  French,  and  must  win  at  the  first  rush;  the  third  kind 
has  neither  valor  nor  discipline,  like  the  Italian,  and  wins  only  by  acci- 
dent. In  his  Arte  delta  Guerra  the  pith  of  his  argument  is  that  the 
strength  of  a  state  lies  in  the  armed  people,  fighting  chiefly  on  foot,  and 
to  that  end  military  discipline  should  be  ordained.  "It  has  proved  a 
fatal  error  in  Italy  to  have  separated  the  military  from  the  civil  life, 
making  of  the  former  a  trade,  such  as  is  followed  by  the  mercenary 
companies.  Thus  the  soldier  becomes  violent,  threatening,  corrupt,  and 
an  enemy  to  all  civil  life."     From  the  dedicatory  letter  to  Lorenzo  Strozzi. 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  87 

enable  the  possessor  to  attain  his  ends,  just  as  In  the 
proper  place  severity  and  cruelty  may  also  gain  them. 
And  In  so  far  as  justice  and  the  like  good  qualities  attain 
the  ends  of  the  patria,  they  are  desirable.  It  Is  always  a 
matter  of  attaining  ends.  Humanity  revolts  at  the 
thought  that  the  means,  In  themselves,  are  indifferent; 
yet  they  stand  or  fall  by  their  efficacy;  by  that  they  must 
be  judged;  therein  lies  their  justification;  there  is  no 
other. 

Machiavelll  was  of  his  own  Italian  time,  part  of  its 
weakness  and  corruption,  of  Its  mind  —  one  of  the  very 
best  of  Its  minds.  But  well  he  knew,  both  for  himself 
and  Italy,  how  impotent  Is  the  intellect  without  strength 
of  purpose.  Lacking  that,  men  are  the  prey  of  chance, 
of  fortune:  "  For  when  mxcn  are  weak,  Fortune  shows 
herself  strong;  and  because  she  changes,  states  and  gov- 
ernments change  with  her;  and  will  continue  to  change, 
until  someone  arise,  who,  following  reverently  the  exam- 
ple of  the  ancients,  shall  so  control  her,  that  she  shall 
not  have  opportunity  with  every  revolution  of  the  sun  to 
display  anew  the  greatness  of  her  power."  ^^ 

A  man  weak  In  character  may  write  books  of  different 
flavor,  as  he  bends  to  the  matter  of  his  composition  and 
the  end  in  view.  In  the  Discorsi  Machiavelll  would  show 
the  rules  of  action  by  which  a  Republic  might  attain 
power  and  maintain  It.  He  will  apply  his  same  reason- 
ing to  a  despot,  who,  privately  viewed,  may  be  an  evil 
man.  He  too,  good  or  evil,  would  maintain  his  rule  and 
aggrandize  his  power;  he  too  must  employ  means  suited 
to  that  end  —  and  again  it  is  the  end  that  justifies. 

Moreover,  if  the  end  be  good,  that  Is,  If  It  embrace 
the  welfare  of  many  people,  it  will  seem  to  ennoble  the 
means,  as  the  aggrandizement  of  a  tyrannous  individual 
cannot  ennoble  them.  Many  of  the  notorious  doctrines 
of  The  Prince  appear  In  the  Discorsi,  wherein  the  welfare 
of  the  patria  is  made  to  justify  the  murderous  act: 
"  Where  the  welfare  of  the  patria  Is  at  stake,  you  should 

13  Discgrsi,  Bk,  II,  ch,  30,  Thompson's  translation, 


88  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

not  consider  whether  a  measure  be  just  or  unjust,  merci- 
ful or  cruel,  praiseworthy  or  Ignominious;  rather,  all  else 
laid  aside,  you  should  do  what  will  ensure  the  safety  of 
the  patria  and  maintain  Its  liberty."  ^*  This  may  be  an 
Indecorous  amplification  of  the  old  motto  —  salus  populi 
siiprema  lex.  But  when  the  end  In  view  Is  the  strength- 
ening of  a  tyrant  In  his  tyranny,  the  evil  end  will  seem 
to  us  to  aggravate  the  villainy  of  the  means.  So  It  did 
not  seem  to  Machlavelll,  who  looked  solely  to  the  efficacy 
of  the  means  with  respect  to  the  end  desired  by  the  doer. 
He  admired  success  and  the  abilities  w^hlch  win  it,  and 
not  the  least  among  the  latter  was  the  faculty  of  using 
relentlessly  and  logically  whatever  means  were  best  suited 
to  the  end.  It  Is  the  old  worship  of  aperr;,  virtus,  virtu, 
which  Is  faculty,  or  better,  superfaculty.  Machlavelll 
admires  and  somewhat  Idealizes  Cesare  Borgia  as  the  vir- 
tuoso, who  unhesitatingly  uses  any  apt  means.  He  would 
never  have  been  guilty  of  the  fault  of  Glovanpagolo  Bag- 
llonl,  whose  scruples  kept  him  from  seizing  Julius  II  In 
Perugia  In  1505  when  he  had  the  chance. ^^ 

There  Is  a  chapter  on  Conspiracies  In  the  Discorsi,^^ 
which  Is  an  expansion  of  passages  In  The  Prince.  It  Is  a 
masterly  examination  of  the  odds  and  chances  and  the 
psychological  phenomena  of  conspiracies.  The  employ- 
ment of  men  who  have  already  had  experience  In  assas- 
sinations. Is  recommended  because  even  brave  men  who 
are  used  to  arms  and  death  under  different  circumstances, 
may  prove  uncertain  Instruments  of  assassination.  Public 
sentiment  has  commonly  applauded  the  tyrannicide.  But 
Machlavelll's  professional  consideration  of  the  best 
methods  for  conspirators  would  not  have  been  affected 
by  the  circumstance  that  their  object  was  the  overthrow 
of  a  free  government. 

In  reading  The  Prince,  one  should  beware  of  thinking 
of  the  prince  as  a  mere  Individual.  He  Is  also  the  sym- 
bol of  the  State  he  rules;  and  therefore,  as  touching  the 

'^*  Discorsi,  III,  41.     Passage  quoted  in  Villari's  Machlavelll. 
'^^Dis.  I,  27. 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  89 

justice  or  atrocity  of  his  measures,  one  should  remember 
that  the  principle  of  salus  populi  applies  to  him,  the  sov- 
ereign. And  at  the  end  of  the  book,  the  fading  light 
of  Italian  patriotism  casts  its  gleam  backward  over  the 
work  of  the  sinister  personality  of  Its  protagonist,  till  one 
beholds,  in  hope  at  least,  this  Ideal  Prince  as  the  Instru- 
ment of  Italian  strength  and  unity.  The  author  closes 
with  his  grand  appeal  to  the  Medici  to  assume  the  role 
which  some  centuries  later  was  fulfilled  by  the  House  of 
Savoy. 

Machlavelli's  famous  work  suffers  from  too  much  logic 
and  the  unqualified  application  of  general  principles  to 
human  affairs.  One  may  doubt  whether  it  carries  as 
large  a  consideration  of  human  nature,  with  its  gusts  of 
feeling  and  its  waves  of  unpredictable  conduct,  as  the 
Discorsi.  The  latter  was  the  slower  fruit  of  years  of 
thought,  and  had  the  unllterary  advantage  of  being  more 
desultory.  It  is  especially  clear  in  The  Prince  that  one 
weakness  of  Machlavelli's  reasoning  lies  in  Itself  —  that 
it  is  sheer  reasoning,  and  will  not  fit  the  unexpected 
turns  of  human  life.  A  writer  who  sets  forth,  not  what 
men  should  do,  but  how  they  will  necessarily  act,  may  fool 
himself  as  readily  as  one  who  takes  Into  account  the  Irra- 
tional and  generous  conduct  of  men  struggling  for  Ideals 
or  uplifted  by  a  situation.  The  author  of  The  Prince 
never  could  have  foreseen  or  imagined  that  which  has 
been  the  greatest  fact  In  the  experience  of  our  own  gen- 
eration, the  mighty  awakening  of  America's  enthusiasm 
and  resolve  for  a  war  of  righteousness  and  the  Ideals  of 
man. 

It  Is  Indeed  a  general  characteristic  of  Machiavelli  that 
his  statements  are  but  half-truths :  every  statement  a  half- 
truth,  and  usually  the  dirty  side.  Possibly  no  man  ever 
speaks  a  whole  one,  since  the  human  mind  cannot  formu- 
late more  than  one  phase  of  life  at  a  time.  Machiavelli 
at  least  might  have  corrected  some  of  his  half-truths  from 
Plato !  It  Is  clear  that  one  devilish  fallacy  pervades  his 
reasoning.  He  never  realizes  the  evil  effect  of  the  evil 
act  upon  the  doer,  be  the  doer  an  individual  or  a  gov- 


90  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ernment  or  a  partly  responsible  people.  Again  to  refer 
to  our  own  time,  as  modern  Germany  has  shown  herself 
the  most  Titanic  example  of  Machiavellianism  that  the 
world  has  seen,  so  has  she  calamitously  exemplified  the 
specific  Machiavellian  fallacy  which  ignores  the  degenera- 
tion entering  the  nature  of  the  evil-doer. 


Ill 

Like  Machiavelli,  another  Florentine,  fourteen  years 
his  junior,  harboured  the  thought  of  Italy,  and  hated  the 
French,  the  Spaniards,  the  Germans  and  the  Swiss;  but 
unlike  Machiavelli,  Francesco  Guicciardini  brooded  and 
hated  without  hope.  He  was  no  theorist,  but  the  hard- 
headed  man  of  an  Italy  politically  disillusioned  and  ob- 
viously lacking  in  those  qualities  which  once  had  driven 
the  small  city  by  the  Tiber  on  to  greatness.  Machiavelli 
had  unmasked  that  Italy  in  his  Florentine  History,  giving 
the  story  of  those  wars  in  which  no  warriors  fell !  Wars 
that  might  be  entered  on  without  fear,  waged  without 
danger,  ended  without  loss  —  if  one  had  the  wit!  Such 
was  the  war  between  Florence  and  Venice,  which  he  nar- 
rates in  his  fifth  and  sixth  books:  Duke  Filippo  Maria 
Visconti  of  Milan  with  Francesco  Sforza  on  the  one  side, 
and  skillful  Piccinino  on  the  other;  safe  marauding,  blood- 
less battles,  till  the  war  ends  when  the  Duke  has  married 
his  much  promised  daughter  to  Sforza,  after  lies  and 
double  dealing,  tedious,  but  curious  to  relate. 

This  was  before  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century; 
and  Machiavelli  ends  his  History  with  the  death  of 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  1492.  Guicciardini  takes  up  the 
tale  in  his  Storia  d'ltalia,  beginning  with  the  descent  of 
the  French,  that  dire  event  of  1494,  a  year  apparently 
marked  by  prodigies  which  the  historian  does  not  care  to 
discredit.  Charles  VIII  wavered  to  the  last,  ready  to 
abandon  the  enterprise,  when  he  was  caught  again  by  the 
argument  of  Cardinal  della  Rovere  (destined  to  be  Pope 
Julius  II)  that  "  fatale  instrumento  e  allora  e  prime  e 
poi  de'  mali  d'ltalia."     Besides  the  excellent  artillery  of 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  ^1 

the  French,  Gulcciardini  gives  further  reasons  for  their 
military  superiority  over  ItaHans;  the  men  at  arms  were 
subjects  of  the  King,  and  gentlemen,  and  paid  by  his  min- 
isters, having  the  best  of  horses  and  arms,  and,  above  all, 
the  sense  of  honor,  with  the  fair  chance  of  promotion. 
So  their  captains,  all  of  noble  blood,  even  barons  and 
lords,  and  subject  to  the  King,  eager  to  merit  his  praises, 
and  without  other  chance  of  betterment.  This  was  quite 
different  from  the  Italian  armies,  in  which  were  peasants 
and  plebs,  and  subjects  of  other  princes,  dependent  for 
pay  on  their  captains,  who  were  rarely  the  subjects  of 
the  cities  or  princes  whom  they  served,  but  had  interests 
of  their  own,  with  envy  and  hatred  of  each  other;  ava- 
ricious, unstable,  these  captains  were  the  mere  padroni  of 
their  companies. 

The  Storia  d^Italia  passes  on  through  rapine,  villainy, 
and  perfidy,  the  sack  of  cities  and  the  ruin  of  liberty. 
Years  are  consumed,  till  the  mingled  tide  of  Impotence 
and  wickedness,  for  want  of  some  brave  and  able  man 
to  stop  it,  nears  the  Eternal  City,  with  no  barrier  except 
the  knavery  and  poltroonery  of  Pope  Clement  VII ! 
Who  cared?  Who  should  stop  it?  So  the  vile  army 
of  Spaniards  and  German  Lutherans  presses  on  for  plun- 
der,—  fate  helping,  no  one  impeding  —  to  the  sack  of 
Rome.  That  was  In  1527,  and  in  two  or  three  years 
there  is  accord  between  the  royal  scoundrels,  and  Italy  is 
pacified,  enslaved  as  she  deserved  (Ah!  if  we  all  should 
get  our  deserts)  ;  and  abandoned  Florence  is  fighting  help- 
lessly for  her  liberties,  till  she  too  is  taken  in  the  be- 
sieger's net. 

Assuredly  Gulcciardini  was  the  successful  Italian  diplo- 
mat and  statesman  of  his  time  —  successful,  that  is  to 
say,  in  his  own  advancement.  He  loved  Italy  and  hated 
the  priests,  but  above  all  else  he  loved  himself,  and  was 
ready  to  bend  his  sentiments  to  serve  his  purposes.  Ad- 
vantageously born  and  advantageously  married  in  Flor- 
ence, he  was  sent  as  Ambassador  to  the  king  of  Spain, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-eight.  This  was  in  151 1.  After 
his  return,  he  progressed  in  favor  with  the  Medici  and 


92  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  popes.  In  his  city  he  occupied  one  important  posi- 
tion after  another.  Then,  in  the  service  of  Leo  X, 
Adrian  VI,  and  Clement  VII,  he  was  governor  of  va- 
rious cities,  commissary-general,  president  of  the  Ro- 
magna,  and  held  the  rank  of  lieutenant-general  in  that 
papal  army  which  did  not  prevent  the  sack  of  Rome. 
Nor  did  he  afterwards  lack  papal  employment. 

During  all  the  years  while  he  served  his  papal  masters 
—  shall  we  say  "faithfully"?  —  his  own  opinions,  and 
such  feelings  as  he  had,  were  as  he  expressed  them  in  his 
Rkordi: 

"  I  know  none  more  disgusted  than  myself  by  the  ambition,  the 
avarice,  and  the  effeminacy  of  the  priests;  each  of  these  vices  is 
odious,  and  ill-fitting  those  who  profess  the  life  which  depends  on 
God.  .  .  .  Yet  my  relations  with  the  popes  have  compelled  me  to 
love  their  grandeur  per  il  particulare  mio  —  for  the  sake  of  my 
own  interest;  and  if  it  were  not  for  this,  I  should  have  loved 
Martin  Luther  as  myself,  not  for  freeing  me  from  the  laws  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  it  is  universally  interpreted  and  understood, 
but  to  see  this  troop  of  scoundrels  put  in  their  right  place,  where 
they  should  remain  either  without  vices  or  without  authority." 
Again:  **  Three  things  I  wish  to  see  before  my  death,  but  doubt, 
even  though  I  live  long,  of  seeing  any  one  of  them :  —  a  well 
ordered  republic  in  our  city;  Italy  freed  from  all  the  barbarians; 
and  the  world  freed  from  the  tyranny  of  these  vile  priests."  ^'^ 

Guicciardini  passes  for  a  man  without  illusions  —  un- 
less to  be  such  be  the  great  delusion!  Yet,  as  with  most 
men,  several  souls  dwelt  in  his  breast;  and  no  single  ex- 
pression reflects  his  whole  nature.  He  could  at  least  ap- 
preciate moral  qualities,  speaking  of  his  own  father  as  a 
man  of  "  large  judgment,  and  good  conscience,  a  lover  of 
the  welfare  of  the  city  and  of  the  poor;  nor  did  he  ever 
do  the  least  wrong  to  anyone."  He  even  speaks  of  his 
own  endeavor  to  keep  a  good  name,  and  repeats  that  he 
had  ever  loved  *'  la  patria."  He  can  consider  life  "  as 
a  Christian,  as  a  philosopher,  as  a  man  of  the  world. ^^ 

^-^Ricordi  politici,  XXyill   and   CCXXXVI. 

'^^  Ricordi  Autobiografici,  Opere  inedite,  X,  pp.  90,  103,  132. 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  93 

Nevertheless,  he  appears  predominantly  as  a  man  of  in- 
sight and  clever  faculty,  pursuing  the  interests  of  his  em- 
ployers, and  certainly  his  own.     His  thoughts  usually  dis- 
credit or  ignore  the  more  general  human  motives,  and 
place  little  reliance  upon  such  general  principles  as  Ma- 
chlavelll  constructed  from  his  study  of  Roman  history. 
To  him,  Machlavelli  was  a  theorist,  with  his  head  wrapt 
in  dreams  of  what  could  not  come  to  pass.     Guicciardini 
viewed  facts  as  they  were.     The  contrast  between  the  two 
appears  In  his  Considerazione  of  Machiavelll's  Discorsi 
upon  Livy;  In  which  the  younger  man  quickly  sees  such 
holes  as  there  might  be  In  the  arguments  of  his  friend, 
pointing  out,  for  instance,  the  fallacy  of  regarding  the 
disunion  between  Patricians  and  Plebs  as  the  cause  of 
Roman  liberty.     Sometimes  he  approves  points   in  the 
Discorsi,  but  again  he  finds  expositions  in  them  suitable 
to  books  and  to  the  imagination,  rather  than  agreeing 
with   the   way   things   actually   take   place.     This    critic 
rightly  felt  that  he  had  the  larger  knowledge  of  affairs. 
Of  course,  with  Machlavelli,  he  regarded  fraud  and  vio- 
lence  as  praiseworthy  or   foolish  according  to   circum- 
stances.    He  was  not  himself  an  unqualified  admirer  of 
antiquity,  thinking  It  had  been  over-praised,  and  that  his 
own  time  in  some  respects  was  preferable.     He  thought 
less  highly  of  the  Roman  civil  constitution  than  of  their 
military  system.      Machlavelli  had  laid  the  ills  of  Italy, 
and  its  disunion,  upon  the  papacy,  which  had  been  always 
so  ready  to  call  in  the  barbarians.     Guicciardini  points 
out  that  the  barbarians  had  begun  their  invasions  in  the 
times  of  the  Roman  Empire.     It  was  true  that  the  papacy 
had  hindered  Italy  from  becoming  a  single  State;  but  it 
were  hard  to  say  whether  that  was  an  ill  thing  or  a  good. 
A  single  republic  might  have  made  the  name  of  Italy 
glorious,  but  it  would  have  ruined  the  other  Italian  states. 
This  view  was  correct  with  regard  to  such  Italian  repub- 
lics as  these  men  had  known,  since  their  way  was  to  ex- 
ploit the  towns  and  territories  conquered  by  them,  with- 
out extending  the  privileges  of  their  citizenship  to  the 
conquered. 


94  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  tenor  of  Guicciardlni's  opinions  may  be  gathered 
from  his  Storia  d'ltalia.  But  his  thoughts  are  put  in 
nugget-form  in  his  commonplace  book,  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  Ricordi  politici  e  chili.  There  his  penetrating 
consideration  of  humanity  appears,  and  his  distrust  of 
theory.  ''  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  speak  of  mundane  af- 
fairs without  distinguishing  and  quahfying,  and  as  it 
were,  by  rule;  for  they  all  involve  distinctions  and  excep- 
tions due  to  circumstances,  and  the  same  measure  will  not 
fit;  these  variations  are  not  in  the  books,  and  discretion 
must  instruct  us"  (vi).  Precedents  (esempli)  are  fal- 
lacious guides;  since  they  do  not  serve  us  unless  they  agree 
in  every  particular,  and  the  least  variation  in  the  case 
may  lead  to  great  variation  in  effect,  and  those  little  dif- 
ferences are  so  hard  to  see  (cxvii).  Still,  the  same 
proverbs  are  found  with  every  people, —  for  they  are 
born  of  like  experiences  (xii).  And  while  it  Is  said  that 
one  cannot  judge  well  without  knowing  all  the  par- 
ticulars, nevertheless  I  have  often  noticed  with  people 
of  mediocre  judgment,  that  they  do  better  with  only  a 
general  knowledge,  than  when  all  the  particulars  are  laid 
before  them,  through  which  they  are  confused,  while  upon 
the  general  Idea  a  good  resolution  may  be  based  (civ). 

"  These  Ricordi  are  rules  such  as  one  may  write  In  a 
book;  but  the  particular  cases,  which  for  various  rea- 
sons call  for  other  decisions,  are  difficult  to  write  down 
save  In  the  lihro  delta  discrezione  ''  (cclvil).  Guicciar- 
dlni's Italian  has  been  occasionally  condensed  In  the  fol- 
lowing examples  of  his  sentiments: 

If  YOU  must  insult  another,  be  careful  to  say  what  will 
offend  him  alone,  and  not  many  other  people  (vIII). 
Do  everything  to  appear  good,  which  helps  Infinitely; 
but,  as  false  opinions  do  not  endure,  you  will  hardly 
succeed  in  seeming  good  in  the  long  run,  unless  you  are  In 
truth  (xliv).  States  cannot  be  ruled  according  to  con- 
science, for  their  origins  were  In  violence.  The  Empire 
IS  no  exception,  and  as  for  the  priests,  their  violence  Is 
enforced  bv  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal  weapons 
(xlvIII).     Neutrality  In  a  war  between  others  Is  a  safe 


ITALIAN  PUBLICISTS  95 

policy  for  that  state  which  is  so  powerful  as  to  be  un- 
concerned which  of  the  belligerents  is  victorious.  The 
weak  neutral  will  be  the  victor's  prey.  But  the  worst 
policy  for  a  neutral  is  to  be  drawn  through  vacillation  to 
a  course  which  his  judgment  disapproves,  and  he  pleases 
neither  belligerent.  This  happens  more  frequently  with 
republics  than  with  despots,  because  the  people  are  di- 
vided, and  counsel  this  and  that  (Ixviii).  "  I  observed 
while  I  was  Ambassador  in  Spain,  that  the  Catholic 
King,  Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  when  he  wished  to  under- 
take some  new  enterprise,  or  make  an  important  deci- 
sion, managed  so  that  the  Court  and  people  were  clam- 
oring for  it,  before  he  made  known  his  mind " 
(Ixxvii).  Do  not  start  a  revolution  in  the  hope  of 
being  followed  by  the  people;  for  the  people  may  show 
no  mind  to  follow  you,  and  may  have  ideas  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  you  think  (cxxi).  "Who  speaks  of  a 
people,  speaks  of  a  fool  animal,  filled  with  a  thousand 
errors,  a  thousand  disorders  (confusloni) ,  without  taste, 
without  joy,  without  stability  "  (cxl).  No  wonder  there 
is  ignorance  of  the  things  past  or  remote,  when  so 
little  Is  known  of  the  present,  or  even  of  what  is  going 
on  in  the  same  city,  where  often  between  the  palace  and 
the  piazza  there  Is  a  cloud  so  dense  and  a  wall  so  high, 
that  the  eye  cannot  penetrate  it  —  so  much  the  people 
know  of  what  their  rulers  do,  or  of  their  reasons 
(cxll). 

The  same  mood,  or  strain  of  opinion,  is  not  always 
represented  In  these  Ricordi;  slowly  and  carefully  the  au- 
thor says:  "  He  errs  who  thinks  that  the  success  of  en- 
terprises turns  on  their  being  just  or  unjust;  for  one  sees 
the  contrary  every  day;  that  not  the  just  cause,  but  pru- 
dence, force,  and  good  fortune  bring  the  victory.  It  is 
true  that  In  him  who  has  justice  with  him  is  born  a  cer- 
tain confidence  based  on  the  opinion  that  God  gives  vic- 
tory to  just  undertakings,  which  makes  men  keen  and  ob- 
stinate; and  sometimes  victory  springs  from  such  condi- 
tions. A  just  cause  may  thus  help  indirectly;  it  does  not 
help  directly  "  (cxlvli). 


96  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

But  again:  "  I  do  not  blame  fasting,  prayer  and  such 
like  works,  which  are  ordained  by  the  Church  or  advised 
by  the  Friars;  but  the  best  of  all,  in  comparison  with 
which  the  rest  are  slight  affairs,  Is  not  to  injure  another, 
and  to  help  everyone  as  you  may  be  able"  (clix). 
Following  close  upon  the  last,  this  excellent  sentiment 
takes  one's  breath  away.  In  the  very  next  note,  the  mood 
is  not  quite  the  same.  Everyone  knows  he  has  to  die, 
and  yet  lives  as  if  he  was  to  live  forever.  "  I  believe 
this  comes  because  nature  wills  that  we  should  live  as 
the  body  requires  and  the  true  disposition  of  this  mun- 
dane machine;  for  not  wishing  us  to  stay  dead  and  sense- 
less, nature  has  given  us  the  property  of  not  thinking  on 
death,  which  if  we  thought  about,  the  world  would  be 
full  of  sloth  and  torpor  "  (clx) . 

And  finally:  "  It  has  been  truly  said  that  too  much 
religion  spoils  the  world,  because  it  enfeebles  the  minds, 
envelops  men  in  a  thousand  errors,  and  turns  them  from 
many  noble  and  manly  undertakings, —  nor  do  I  wish 
through  this  to  disparage  the  Christian  faith." 


CHAPTER  V 

ITALIAN    SELF-EXPRESSION    IN    PAINTING 

Voluble  as  were  the  Italian  people,  loving  talk  and 
song,  and  possessing  a  melodious  language,  they  were  a 
seeing,  rather  than  a  reading  or  listening,  folk.  Their 
minds  ran  to  visible  Images,  painted  In  color.  Not  only 
did  they  think,  they  felt  In  Images;  which  thronged  In 
their  emotion  as  well  as  In  their  thought.  Leonardo 
was  constant  to  the  Instincts  of  his  race  In  his  Impas- 
sioned arguments  that  painting  Is  a  nobler  and  more  po- 
tent art  than  poetry. 

All  Italians,  from  the  unlettered  rustic  to  the  much 
lettered  prince  or  condottlero,  looked  naturally  to  painted 
forms  and  decorations  not  merely  for  their  pleasure  but 
for  their  Ideas.  The  visualizing  faculty,  the  need  of 
forms  to  fill  It,  was  part  of  their  Graeco-Roman  heri- 
tage of  mental  habit.  Those  who  were  conversant  with 
antique  letters,  saw  the  figures  of  the  old  gods  and  he- 
roes, and  the  forms  of  antique  personifications.  And  all 
the  people,  lettered  and  unlettered,  saw  the  saints  and 
angels,  the  Virgin,  Christ,  and  even  God  Almighty,  whom 
the  mightiest  of  Italian  geniuses  painted  on  the  celling 
of  the  SIstlne  Chapel. 

Books  were  for  priests  and  scholars.  The  people 
loved  painted  forms,  appreciated  them,  and  could  criti- 
cise them  too.  Painting  was  for  interior  embellishment, 
and  for  the  exemplification  of  the  people's  faith  upon  the 
walls  of  churches  and  over  the  high  altars.  For  the 
outside,  there  was  carving  in  stone  and  marble,  or  better, 
in  the  warmer  and  more  salient  tones  of  bronze.  Color 
was  a  delight,  whether  within  or  without  the  church  or 
palace  or  civic  structure.     No  building  should  lack  its 

97 


98  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

raiment,  pictorial  or  sculpturesque,  decorative  and  beau- 
tiful, of  course;  but  also  Illuminative,  speaking.  The  col- 
ors, lights  and  shades,  the  expressive  figures,  addressed 
themselves  both  to  the  outer  and  to  the  inwardly  speak- 
ing eye  of  this  Italian  people,  whose  thoughts  were  forms 
and  images,  and  rarely  disembodied  or  unclothed  them- 
selves In  colorless  ratiocination.  Naturally  again,  this 
same  people,  high  and  low,  delighted  In  the  passing  gor- 
geousness,  the  living,  entrancing  figures  of  civic  pageants, 
or  those  through  which  princely  despots  displayed  their 
power  and  magnificence. 

The  Italian  passion  for  the  delights  of  vision  might 
becloud  the  Intelligent  appreciation  of  other  factors  of 
expression,  which  might  be  equally  clever  and  pleasur- 
able and  even  more  to  the  point.  The  Elizabethan 
drama  culminating  in  Shakespeare  was  Immeasurably 
greater  than  the  Italian  drama  of  the  sixteenth  century; 
it  was  given  naked,  with  no  more  setting  than  the  needs 
of  its  action  positively  required.  But  when  a  play, 
whether  by  Terence  or  by  Ariosto,  was  given  at  Urbino, 
Ferrara,  Mantua  or  Milan,  it  was  an  occasion  for  dis- 
play. Its  trappings,  its  mechanical  contrivances  and  fan- 
tasies, its  magnificence  of  tapestry  and  painting,  not  to 
mention  the  Interjection  of  scenic  masking  and  dancing, 
tended  to  distract  attention  from  the  play.  All  eyes  were 
fastened  pleasurably  upon  the  gorgeous  pictures  that  en- 
framed It,  and  bore  such  stately  and  delectable  testimony 
to  the  wealth  and  taste  of  the  Magnlfico  who  had  set  the 
festival. 

The  plays  themselves  might  be  weakened  In  their  com- 
position by  the  Italian  passion  for  pictures;  their  dialogue 
might  become  word-painting,  as  In  the  Orfeo  or  the 
Stanze  of  Politian.  Though  an  Ariosto  or  a  Machia- 
velli  might  write  clever  comedy,  great  drama  could  no 
more  come  Into  existence  in  sixteenth  century  Italy  than 
a  great  era  of  painting  could  arise  in  Elizabethan  Eng- 
land. The  achievement  in  either  case  sprang  from  the 
genius  of  Italian  painters  or  English  playwrights,  sup- 
ported by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  99 

Springing  thus  from  the  demands  and  appreciations  of 
a  people,  painting  and  sculpture  utterly  surpassed  the  lit- 
erature, whether  prose  or  poetry,  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries  in  Italy.  However  scholars  and  poets 
might  esteem  themselves,  and  grace  the  tables  of  the 
rich,  the  painters  and  sculptors,  with  now  and  then  an 
architect,  were  the  best  men  of  the  period.  It  was  no 
accident,  but  due  to  the  nature  of  the  time  and  people, 
that  Leonardo,  Michelangelo  and  Raphael  are  the  true 
representatives  and  indeed  the  greatest  Italians  of  their 
era. 

Who  should  rival  them?  In  sheer  scholarship  the 
Italians  were  not  destined  to  equal  the  energy  and  in- 
sight of  the  Flemings  and  the  French.  Poetry,  in  its 
finer  modes,  was  clogged  with  classical  conventions  and 
the  weight  of  antique  phrase;  it  was,  moreover,  of  rather 
courtly  and  parasitic  growth;  it  fed  or  starved  at  the 
courts  of  the  Medici  or  the  Gonzagas  or  the  Este.  The 
mightier  energies  of  Italian  painting  were  instructed,  but 
not  hampered,  by  the  antique;  while  a  far  stronger  popu- 
lar demand  supported  them  along  a  broader  way  of 
growth.  And  if  sculpture  carried  on  the  antique  tradi- 
tion more  markedly  than  painting,  that  tradition  was  as 
a  guiding  form  within  an  organism  which  was  unfolding 
its  own  living  powers. 

Nor  until  Galileo  came,  might  one  look  to  science  for 
rivals  of  these  great  painters,  who  were  sculptors,  archi- 
tects, engineers,  as  well.  The  best  physical  science  in  the 
fifteenth  and  earlier  sixteenth  centuries  still  consorted 
with  the  arts  of  construction  and  design.  Alberti  and 
Leonardo  proved  and  glorified  this  union.  While  Leon- 
ardo lived,  no  other  investigator  of  the  properties  of 
things  might  touch  the  hem  of  Leonardo's  cloak. 

Among  the  rulers  were  men  of  finesse  and  subtlety, 
and  one  at  least,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  possessed  as- 
tounding: faculties.  The  rule  of  these  picturesque  des- 
pots did  not  lack  gracious  elements.  The  Medici,  the 
Sforzas,  the  Gonzagas,  the  house  of  Este,  did  much  to 
iadorn  and  render  prosperous  their  states.     They  were 


loo  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

enlightened  patrons  of  the  arts,  taking  pleasure  In  them 
and  recognizing  that  It  was  the  political  function  of  the 
plastic  arts  to  spread  the  fame  and  establish  the  ruler's 
power  In  the  very  eyes  of  men.  Nor  were  these  rulers 
beyond  measure  evil.  Doubtless  they  exemplified  in  their 
various  personalities,  and  in  their  methods  of  aggrandize- 
ment and  political  self-preservation,  the  principles  set 
out  by  Machiavelll  and  the  clever  Venetian  diplomats. 
Commonly  they  used  even  truth  but  to  deceive.  Yet  it 
was  only  in  their  rather  personally  directed  employment 
of  poison,  strangulation,  and  the  dagger,  that  they  seem 
more  vicious  than  apparently  greater  men  of  other  times 
who  have  directed  the  destinies  of  larger  states.  The 
largest  Machiavellian  criminality  In  all  history  has  gone 
on  through  the  decades  In  which  we  ourselves  have  lived, 
and  has  come  to  Its  own  In  war  and  overthrow.  So  with 
Italian  rulers  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
They  scarcely  reached  the  redeeming  goal  of  stable  suc- 
cess and  lasting  prosperity  for  their  houses  and  their 
people.  Their  policies  seem  afflicted  with  some  sort  of 
impotence:  —  were  not  inspired  by  an  efliclent,  and  po- 
tentially self-sacrificing,  national  sentiment;  were  too  in- 
ternecine; too  deeply  affected  with  the  cormorant  Indi- 
vidualism of  the  men  who  devised  them.  So  these  men, 
with  all  their  subtlety  and  deceit  and  knowledge,  will 
scarcely  Impress  us  as  great  statesmen  who  might  over- 
top the  greatness  of  Leonardo  and  Mantegna,  Michel- 
angelo and  Raphael. 

In  considering  the  origins  of  Italian  painting.  It  is  best 
not  to  draw  distinctions  between  substance  and  form. 
One  may  assume  that  the  sculptor,  mosalcist,  or  fresco 
painter,  who  worked  at  his  art  In  the  fourth  century  or  the 
fourteenth  possessed  the  current  knowledge  of  the  Chris- 
tian storv:  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  more  popu- 
lar Old  Testament  incidents,  with  the  life  of  Christ  and 
the  Virgin,  and  the  lives  of  the  Saints,  befijinning  with 
the  Virgin's  parents,  Joachim  and  Anna.  Yet  that  which 
filled  and  shaped  his  work  would  always  be  the  repre- 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  loi 

sentatlon  of  these  salient  Incidents  in  the  mosaics,  fres- 
coes, or  carvings  of  earlier  artists.  Their  presentation 
of  the  same  matter  which  it  was  his  task  to  present  gave 
him  at  once  the  form  and  method  and  the  theme.  In 
these  compositions  in  stone  and  color,  the  theme  or  con- 
tent of  the  work  had  no  separate  existence  from  the  form 
or  method  of  its  presentation.  One  and  the  other  made 
a  single  whole,  coming  to  him  as  a  theme  expressed,  even 
as  his  task  was  to  express  the  same,  possibly  with  modi- 
fication or  Improvement.  The  finished  execution  or  ex- 
pression of  the  theme  had  been  given  him;  and  not  on 
the  one  hand,  forms  or  method  or  technique,  and  on  the 
other  the  substance  of  the  theme  which  he  must  render. 
The  theme  was  composed,  rendered,  expressed,  even  in 
such  form  of  expression  as  he  should  use  with  such  de- 
velopment or  Improvement  as  his  mind  might  aspire  to, 
and  his  faculties  achieve. 

The  expression  of  these  Christian  themes  In  modes  of 
painting  and  sculpture  begins  in  the  Catacombs  of  Rome, 
where  scenes  from  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  are 
crudely  rendered:  Adam  and  Eve,  Noah  in  the  Ark, 
Moses  smiting  the  Rock,  Daniel  among  the  Lions,  and 
the  story  of  Jonas.  From  the  New  Testament  are  taken 
the  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves, 
the  Raising  of  Lazarus.  Most  frequent  of  all  is  the 
figure  of  Christ  as  the  Good  Shepherd,  carrying  a  sheep, 
a  figure  directly  copied  from  a  type  of  tiermes.  There 
were  also  mythological  figures  and  decoration  taken  from 
the  current  pagan  painting,  and  Christian  symbols,  like 
the  fish,  the  dove  or  the  lamb.  These  frescoes  range 
from  the  first  to  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  when 
the  Catacombs  ceased  to  be  used  for  burial.  The  style 
is  that  of  the  poorer  contemporary  pagan  work.  Prac- 
tically the  same  subjects  are  rendered  in  the  figures  carved 
in  high  relief  upon  the  Christian  sarcophagi  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries. 

The  themes  will  be  found  to  enlarge  in  the  decoration 
of  the  great  Christian  basilicas  erected  after  the  official 
conversion  of  the  Empire.     Upon  their  walls  the  lessons 


i6:i  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  the  Christian  faith  were  to  be  set  forth,  as  it  were, 
prophetically  In  the  prefiguratlve  types  and  Incidents  of 
the  Old  Testament;  then,  in  the  miraculous  and  saving 
scenes  of  the  life  of  Christ;  and  triumphantly  in  the  final 
victory  of  the  Cross  and  the  visions  of  the  Apocalypse. 
Mosaic  was  the  chief  means  through  which  the  Christian 
artists  sought  to  decorate  and  glorify  the  walls  of  the 
new-built  churches  with  these  impressive  Christian  themes, 
—  which  Christian  preaching  had  made  familiar  to  the 
people.  The  selection  was  not  left  to  the  artist,  but 
prescribed  by  custom  or  authority.  These  fourth  and 
fifth  century  mosalclsts  followed  the  traditional  concep- 
tions of  the  scenes  and  personages  which  they  now  sought 
to  depict  in  stately  compositions.  The  subjects  were  not 
limited  to  the  canon  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments;  but 
were  drawn  as  well  from  the  Old  Testament  apocrypha 
and  from  the  apocryphal  Gospels.  The  series  grew 
from  century  to  century  until  they  Included  the  whole 
story  of  the  Virgin's  life  and  parentage,  and  many  a 
theme  from  the  great  company  of  angels,  saints,  and 
martyrs.  Yet  tradition  and  authority  guided  the  com- 
positions. The  nave  of  the  church  was  assigned  to  scenes 
from  the  Old  Testament  and  the  earthly  life  of  Christ; 
while  the  apse  and  triumphal  arch  presented  the  glory 
of  the  apocalypse  or  a  Christ  enthroned  In  majesty. 

These  compositions  were  an  enormous  advance  over 
their  childlike  beginnings  in  the  Catacombs.  Instead  of 
the  rudest,  they  represented  the  best  craftsmanship  of 
the  time.  The  dignity  of  Rome  had  entered  them;  the 
ceremony  of  Byzantium  is  approaching.  The  leading  fig- 
ures have  reached  a  typical  individuality.  The  subjects 
are  no  longer  given  through  crude  outline  suggestions, 
but  are  adequately  treated,  with  a  larger  historical  ren- 
dering, and  a  stricter  dogmatism.  Yet  the  effort  of  the 
artist  seems  exhausted  in  presenting  his  subject  with  dig- 
nity and  correctness.     Emotional  qualities  are  lacking. 

These  stately  compositions  were  to  be  as  type-patterns 
through  the  following  centuries.     They  w^re  carried  on 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  103 

in  countless  repetitions,  while  undergoing  modification, 
deterioration,  or  development;  they  might  even  change 
with  the  changing  spirit  and  capacity  of  later  times. 
Just  as  the  matter  of  a  tale  may  be  retold  in  sagas,  and 
resung  in  epic  and  ballad  forms;  and  yet  continue  funda- 
mentally the  same  story,  though  modified  and  perhaps 
made  perfect,  and  imbued  w^th  a  feeling  which  its  first 
rude  telling  scarcely  held. 

At  all  events,  however  the  style  might  change,  what- 
ever modification  there  might  be  of  incidents  or  figures, 
whatever  increment  of  feeling  might  enter,  the  sacred 
themes  were  carried  on  and  delivered  from  generation  to 
generation  of  artists  in  modes  of  pictorial  or  sculp- 
turesque expression.  In  this  expression,  form  and  com- 
position and  technique  blended  with  theme  or  sub- 
stance. Meaning  and  significance,  as  well  as  esthetic 
value,  were  held  in  this  blended  result,  this  finished  whole. 

Style,  pattern,  composition,  and  the  theme  thus  em- 
bodied and  expressed,  passed  through  deterioration  or 
development,  and  varied  change  of  manner,  in  the  cen- 
turies between  the  fifth  and  the  thirteenth.  There  was 
the  fundamental  Graeco-Roman  style,  invigorated  and 
re-inspired  by  Christian  energy  and  the  need  to  express 
these  novel  sacred  themes.  Then  followed  general  de- 
terioration or  barbarizing.  This  was  countered  by  the 
influence  of  the  developing  Byzantine  style,  making  for 
dignity  and  balance,  but  stiffening  into  a  ceremonial  man- 
ner. The  Byzantine  style  dominates  the  stately  mosaics 
of  Ravenna  from  the  fifth  to  the  eighth  century.  It  had 
likewise  much  effect  upon  the  contemporary  art  at  Rome. 
In  the  eleventh  century,  Byzantine  artists  were  brought 
to  Monte  Cassino  by  its  Abbot  Deslderlus;  and  in  the 
twelfth,  in  the  Norman  kingdom  of  Sicily,  the  final  glories 
of  Byzantine  mosaic  color  and  composition  made  beauti- 
ful the  churches  of  Palermo  and  Cefalu.  The  remark- 
able reign  of  the  Emperor  Frederic  II  In  the  next  cen- 
tury effected  a  great  revival  of  palace  and  cathedral 
building  In  Apulia  and  Campania,  with  a  clear  return  to 


I04  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  antique  style  of  sculpture,  as  In  the  still  surviving  por- 
trait-busts executed  at  Capua  to  adorn  the  palace  of  this 
admirer  of  antiquity.^ 

The  imitation  of  the  antique,  which  made  the  con- 
scious note  of  the  revival  of  sculpture  under  Frederic, 
was  but  a  clearer  emphasizing  of  what  had  always  formed 
the  basis  of  Italian  art.  Italy  Itself  was  a  constant  al- 
teration and  effacement,  with  an  equally  constant  renewal, 
of  the  Rome  of  Trajan.  The  face  of  the  land  to-day 
might  still  be  Roman,  had  not  Italy  so  Industriously 
preyed  upon  her  antique  heritage,  constantly  rebuilding 
herself  from  the  old  structures.  It  Is  the  land-wide  ex- 
tension of  the  story  of  the  lime  kilns  of  the  Forum,  of 
the  travertine  blocks  of  the  Colosseum  taken  for  St. 
Peter's,  of  the  columns  of  palaces  and  temples  taken  for 
the  naves  of  churches.  Not  the  devastation  of  war,  but 
the  Industrial  demolition  of  the  antique  buildings,  has 
partially  transformed  the  land.  But  for  this,  one  might 
still  see  the  Forum  and  the  Colosseum,  and  the  Appian 
Way,  and  the  whole  land  Indeed,  very  much  as  it  was 
in  the  days  of  Constantlne. 

Allowing  for  changed  purposes,  even  the  mediaeval 
buildings  constructed  from  such  demolitions  or  from  new 
cut  marble,  still  were  as  antique  as  they  might  be.  If 
the  PIsan  Cathedral  (begun  in  1069),  with  the  Baptistry 
and  Leaning  Tower,  represent  some  development  of  a 
new  Romanesque  architecture,  they  also  represent  re- 
newed skill  and  replenished  resources  still  following  the 
methods  and  the  forms  which  Italy  never  had  departed 
from. 

So  much  for  building,  antique  In  modelling  and  method, 
Christian  merely  in  purpose.  In  painting  or  mosaic  and 
in  sculpture,  not  only  did  style  and  method  derive  from 
the  antique,  and  constantly  hark  back  to  its  source;  but 
decorative  motives  also  were  antique,  and  the  great  mass 
of  subsidiary  figures,  which  In  the  later  times  of  the  fif- 

^  See  Emile  Bcrtaux,  VArt  dans  Vltalie  meridionale,  Tome  I.  These 
busts  have  also  been  thought  real  antiques.  The  Byzantine  style  tends  to 
Italianize  in  the  mosaics  in  St.  Mark's  and  the  Florence  Baptistry. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  105 

teenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  were  to  reassert  their  In- 
dependent Interest,  and  their  right  to  be  depicted  and  re- 
expressed  for  their  own  sake.  A  fund  of  antique  motives 
and  figures,  allegorical  or  otherwise,  had  carried  clear 
across  from  the  pagan  era  to  all  times  of  Christian  art  — 
a  limitless  number  of  graphic  and  plastic  conceptions  of 
such  clarity  and  distinction  that  Italian  sculpture  and 
painting  should  never  even  wish  to  discard  them.  As 
personifications  or  personal  realities  they  Included  Sun 
and  Moon  and  Ocean,  the  Seasons  and  the  Hours,  the 
Winds  and  Rivers,  Victories  and  Liberal  Arts,  the  Vir- 
tues and  the  Vices,  Sibyls,  Muses,  Sirens,  Psyche,  Cupid, 
Orpheus,  not  to  mention  Alexander,  Caesar  and  Trajan; 
all  In  patterns  and  compositions,  completed  forms  of  pic- 
torial and  plastic  expression. 

In  the  time  of  the  great  Inception  of  truly  Italian  sculp- 
ture and  painting  —  the  time  of  the  PisanI  for  the  one, 
of  Duccio  and  Giotto  for  the  other  —  these  pervasive 
pagan  elements  of  expression  were  made  use  of  as  of 
course.  The  consciously  presented  theme  was  Christian, 
as  suited  the  pulpits  of  baptistries  and  cathedrals,  and  the 
resting  places  for  the  dead  who  looked  to  Christ.  Yet 
though  the  theme  was  Christian,  the  very  thought  of  ex- 
pressing any  religious  theme  In  carved  or  painted  forms 
was  pagan,  that  Is,  Graeco-Roman,  or  Indeed  Hellenic. 
Left  to  themselves,  Jewish  followers  of  Jesus,  like  the 
ancient  Hebrews  from  whose  loins  they  sprang,  would 
have  held  pictorial  representations  of  sacred  personages 
as  rank  Idolatry  —  as  the  racially  kindred  sects  of  Ma- 
hometans still  hold.  It  was  the  Graeco-Roman  world 
that,  turning  to  Christianity,  required  Images  of  Its  new 
faith,  just  as  Its  habit  had  always  been  to  worship  Its  gods 
and  goddesses  In  plastic  forms.  So  the  sacred  art  of  the 
Christian  faith  Is  pagan  In  the  original  demand  for  it  and 
in  Its  consequent  Inception. 

Looking  at  the  sculpture  of  NIccola  PIsano  (cir.  1206- 
1280)  and  his  son  Giovanni,  one  may  realize  what  blends 
of  styhstlc  method  and  patterning,  and  what  Intricacy 
of  cultural  and  religious  sentiment  and  conception  en- 


io6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tered  their  work,  to  be  appropriated  by  them,  and  made 
their  own.  Niccola  accepts  the  topics  of  his  Christian 
theme  —  the  Annunciation  and  the  Birth  of  Christ,  the 
offerings  of  the  Magi,  the  Crucifixion,  the  Last  Judg- 
ment—  from  his  predecessors;  their  methods  and 
schemes  of  composition  were  also  part  of  his  equipment. 
Since  apparently  he  came  from  Apulia,  he  may  have  felt 
the  influence  of  almost  any  style  used  before  his  day  in 
Italy.  Most  obviously  his  own  early  work,  the  pulpit  of 
the  Pisan  Baptistry,  (completed  by  1260)  imitates  the  re- 
lief carvings  of  certain  Roman  sarcophagi,  which  may  still 
be  seen  in  Pisa.  Toward  the  end  of  his  career,  as  when 
working  with  his  son  upon  the  pulpit  of  the  Sienna  Cathe- 
dral, he  had  progressed  toward  a  freer  and  more  natural 
manipulation  of  his  figures,  and  had  availed  of  the  les- 
sons of  contemporary  French  Gothic  sculpture,  as  one 
may  plainly  see  in  the  figure  of  the  Madonna  holding  the 
Child  at  one  of  the  angles  of  the  Sienna  pulpit.  His 
sculpture  has  become  more  expressive  and  m.ore  beauti- 
ful. The  son  Giovanni  likewise  shows  the  French  influ- 
ence; but  his  admirable  reliefs,  as  upon  his  pulpits  in  Pis- 
toia  and  in  the  Pisan  Cathedral  (finished  respectively 
about  1 30 1  and  131 1),  mark  energetic  progress  toward  a 
natural  beauty  in  his  figures;  pointing  onward  to  the  beau- 
tiful bronze  door  of  Andrea  Pisano  designed  for  the  bap- 
tistry at  Florence,  and  to  the  painting  of  Giotto.^  It 
was  doubtless  by  reason  of  the  presence  of  so  many  an- 
tique models,  that  the  progress  of  sculpture  under  Nic- 
cola Pisano  and  his  son  preceded  Giotto's  grand  uplift- 
ing of  the  art  of  painting:  a  phenomenon  which  repeats 
itself  in  the  next  century,  when  Ghiberti  and  Donatello 
are  the  predecessors  of  Masaccio,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  and 
Mantegna. 

In  the  work  of  these  great  artists  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  is  seen  the  growth  of  a  veritable 

2  The  door  was  completed  and  installed  by  1336.  Giotto,  born  some 
thirty  years  before  Andrea,  died  in  1337.  He  aided  Andrea  with  counsel. 
Vasari  says  that  he  furnished  the  designs. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  107 

Italian  style,  which  was  progressing  through  the  constant 
rendering  and  re-rendering  of  the  same  themes,  and  the 
modifying  and  perfecting  of  them,  incited  by  compari- 
son with  former  renderings  and  by  contemporary  living 
competition.  Each  artist  who  does  not  merely  copy  some 
previous  rendering,  but  makes  the  theme  his  own  and 
endeavors  to  improve  the  rendering,  uses  his  own  imag- 
ination, and  follows  his  idea  of  improvement  or  perfec- 
tion. He  is  thus  expressing  himself:  his  work  is  his  self- 
expression.  And  when  a  succession  of  great  artists,  Nic- 
cola  and  Giovanni  and  Andrea,  perfects,  each  of  them, 
the  rendering  of  his  master,  his  work,  which  is  his  self- 
expression,  becomes  part  of  a  larger  self-expression,  which 
may  be  called  that  of  the  race  or  time  or  people. 

This  remains  true  even  when  we  turn  to  so  great  a 
creator  of  living  and  dramatic  composition  as  this  tre- 
mendous Giotto.  He  too  had  accepted  from  convention 
and  authority,  and  from  his  predecessors  in  pictorial  and 
plastic  presentation,  the  round  of  sacred  topics  hitherto 
expressed.  It  was  not  for  him  to  seek  beyond  this  cir- 
cle for  novel  subjects.  Remaining  well  within  it  in  his 
early  work  in  the  Arena  Chapel  at  Padua,  he  re-expressed 
and  again  presented  the  story  of  the  life  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  story  of  the  Hfe  of  Christ,  but  with  a  power  of 
living  and  speaking  composition  which  never  had  been 
given  them  before.  Herein  certainly  was  an  expression 
of  Giotto's  faculties  and  of  his  realizations  of  life  and 
the  power  of  painting  to  represent  it,  of  his  nature  in 
fine,  whereof  his  work  was  a  disclosure,  an  actualization 
in  the  old  scholastic  sense,  and  assuredly  an  expression. 

Yet  providentially  —  for  all  things  that  happen  fitly 
happen  providentially — there  had  been  a  wonderful  life 
which  passed  to  its  apotheosis  a  generation  before  Giot- 
to^s  birth;  and  this  wonderful  life  of  Francis  of  Assisi, 
with  the  religious  experience  of  the  generation  so  stirred 
by  it,  supplied  this  inventive  or  creative  painter  with  a 
new  series  of  topics,  almost  a  new  gospel  story. 

Giotto  did  not  have  to  seek  for  this;  it  flooded  his  con- 


io8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

sclousness,  and  Insisted  upon  presentation.  It  was  so 
telling,  so  dramatic,  and,  above  all,  so  pictorial.  Paint- 
ers before  Giotto  had  but  feebly  rendered  Its  episodes. 
Now  he  would  take  It,  transform  it  somewhat  in  his 
potent  nature,  and  give  It  new  dignity  and  stateliness  in 
frescoes  which  should  present  Francis  as  canonized  by 
the  Church  and  beatified  In  the  adoration  of  the  Italian 
people.^  The  frescoes  which  present  Francis  in  allegory 
and  beatification,  on  the  ceiling  of  the  lower  Assisi 
Church;  those  later  ones  which  gave  the  great  scenes 
of  his  life  and  death,  in  the  BardI  chapel  In  Santa  Croce; 
—  are  likewise  expressions  of  Giotto's  artistic  tastes  and 
faculties  and  composition,  of  his  supreme  artistic  balance 
and  self-control;  they  are  a  self-expression  of  the  man. 

Giotto's  career  held  many  elements  of  progressing 
greatness.  Summing  up  the  past's  attainment,  It  incor- 
porated riches  of  its  own,  and  altogether  was  a  prefig- 
urement  of  the  culmination  of  Italian  painting  in  the 
Cinquecento.  It  was,  first  of  all,  a  great  advance  toward 
naturalness,  toward  life.  Possibly  in  the  Imitative  rep- 
resentation of  living  forms,  it  hardly  equalled  the  sculp- 
ture of  Giovanni  PIsano,  not  to  mention  Andrea.  The 
technique  of  painting  was  not  abreast  of  sculpture.  But 
Giotto  made  a  giant  stride  In  composition,  a  wonderful 
stride  onward  toward  the  representation  of  life,  its  ac- 
tion, its  aspirations  and  attainments,  its  deflections,  its 
constraints  and  sufferings :  and  all  as  exemplified  by  noble 
beings  In  significant  situations.  In  this  way  his  painting 
follows  life,  seizes  upon  telling  acts,  presents  significant 
groupings,  with  the  figures  of  the  tableau  naturally  par- 
ticipating. In  becoming  natural  in  this  large  sense,  Giot- 
to's compositions  have  become  dramatic  and  endowed 
with  the  power  of  narrative.  Perhaps  the  story  of  the 
Virgin  and  the  story  of  her  Son  were  never  painted  as 
tellingly  as  Giotto  painted  them  on  the  walls  of  the  Arena 

3  Giotto  was  no  painful  biographer  or  portrait  painter.  Individualized 
conscientious  portraiture  had  not  yet  entered  painting,  Giotto's  St.  Francis 
is  idealized,  more  excellent  in  physical  form  and  feature,  than  the  early 
Lives  would  justify.  St.  Bonaventura  had  in  like  fashion  transformed 
the  Legend  in  his,  as  it  were,  official  life  of  Francis. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  109 

Chapel.  Painting  and  sculpture  In  Giotto's  time  had  to 
tell  the  sacred  story  which  people  did  not  read  so  readily 
in  books.  They  should  also  tell  the  story  truly,  rendering 
its  Incidents  as  they  occurred.  None  could  be  more  ear- 
nest than  Giotto  In  his  endeavor  to  represent  the  holy 
scenes  truthfully. 

In  this  dramatic  naturalism,  this  trenchant  following 
of  life,  nothing  Is  more  marked  than  the  advance  which 
has  been  made  In  the  expression  of  emotion;  —  of  emo- 
tion which,  whether  expressed  or  visibly  subdued,  makes 
part  of  every  human  event.  Failure  to  realize  and  ex- 
press this  most  natural  element  In  the  Incidents  of  the 
Gospel  had  been  the  great  shortcoming  of  the  frescoes 
and  mosaics  which  Illuminated  the  walls  of  Christian 
basilicas  In  the  fifth  century.  As  the  truths  of  salvation 
and  condemnation  were  pondered  on  and  lived  with  from 
generation  to  generation,  men  saw  them  through  a  gath- 
ering emotion,  which,  for  a  while,  a  decadent  and  bar- 
barized art  could  not  express.  In  Italy,  with  some  slight 
advance  In  technical  skill,  the  endeavor  to  express  the 
feeling  of  these  moving  scenes  appears  in  the  thirteenth 
century.  With  Cavalllnl  at  Rome,*  with  Cimabue  at 
Assisi,  with  Niccola  and  Giovanni  PIsano,  and  then  with 
Giotto,  whose  frescoes  belong  to  the  fourteenth,  comes  a 
new  capacity  to  realize  the  feeling  or  emotion  proper  and 
natural  to  these  scenes,  and  technical  ability  to  express  it. 

One  may  also  think  that  the  life  of  St.  Francis  had 
renewed  men's  religious  sentiments,  stirred  their  emo- 
tions; and  that  because  of  Francis  and  his  legend,  sculp- 
tors and  painters  had  become  more  sensitive.  At  all 
events  an  hitherto  pictorlally  unexpressed  Intensity  of 
emotion  Is  rendered  by  Giotto  on  the  walls  of  the  Arena 
Chapel,  culminating  in  the  scenes  of  the  Crucifixion  and 
the  Deposition  from  the  Cross.  The  expression  of  emo- 
tion in  the  faces  and  the  gestures  of  the  Mother  and  the 
disciples  and  the  angelic  host  is  unexampled  In  previous 
painting  or  sculpture.     These  may  have  been  completed 

*  In  his  mosaics  in  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  and  his  frescoes  in  S.  Cecilia 
in  Trastevere  executed  in  the  last  part  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


no  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

by  the  year  1306,  when  Giotto  was  about  forty.  His 
later  work,  depicting  allegorically  the  glorified  St.  Fran- 
cis on  the  ceiling  of  the  lower  church  at  Assisi,  shows  a 
larger  balance  entering  his  composition;  a  balance  which 
is  well  fitted  to  the  dignity  of  saintly  grief,  visibly  re- 
strained, shown  in  the  still  later  fresco  of  the  death  of 
Francis,  in  the  Bardi  Chapel  in  Santa  Croce.  Although 
the  life  and  death  of  this  most  loving  and  beloved  of 
saints  were  the  theme  of  his  mature  work,  Giotto's  genius 
for  large  and  balanced  composition  and  his  sense  of  seem- 
liness  control  the  final  self-expression  of  this  painter.  In 
the  next  generation  the  combination  of  feeling  and  nat- 
uralness with  composition  in  the  grand  style,  is  carried 
on  by  Orcagna,  Giotto's  greatest  and  most  independent 
follower.  The  many  other  disciples  of  Giotto,  copyists 
of  their  master,  tend  to  retrograde  in  style  and  composi- 
tion. 

One  feels  that  the  tradition  of  antique  sculpture  was 
dominant  In  the  work  of  NIccola  Pisano  and  his  son,  and 
in  the  work  of  Andrea.  Antique  personifications,  decora- 
tive patterns  and  the  lessons  of  antique  sculpture,  either 
directly  or  through  the  Pisani,  entered  the  art  of  Giotto. 
The  result  appears,  for  example.  In  the  beautiful  figure 
of  Hope,  draped  in  antique  fashion,  which  he  painted  as 
a  Christian  virtue  on  the  Arena  Chapel.  At  the  same 
time  these  sculptors  and  this  great  painter  were  striving 
for  fidelity  to  nature.  These  two  Intentions  are  not  in- 
consistent, and  may  promote  each  other,  when  the  artist 
is  no  mere  copyist  of  antique  statues  or  the  antique  man- 
ner; but  is  more  vitally  appropriating  that  antique  ideal- 
izing fidelity  to  nature  which  seeks  to  ennoble  the  type 
by  following  the  pointing  of  nature's  best  suggestions. 

Since  much  antique  statuary  survived,  and  very  little 
painting,^  sculptors  were  more  strongly  drawn  than  paint- 
ers to  follow  the  antique  In  the  thirteenth  and  succeeding 
centuries.  Yet  from  NIccola  Pisano  to  Michelangelo 
the   imitation   of  the   antique  by   Italian   sculptors   was 

5  Ppmpeian  frescoes  had  not  yet  been  unearthed. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  in 

usually  but  part  of  that  idealizing  imitation  of  nature, 
which  likewise  characterized  the  sculpture  of  the  Greeks. 
There  was  no  such  servile  copying  as  might  have  kept 
their  work  from  being  an  expression  of  their  own  facul- 
ties and  tastes,  instincts  and  judgment. 

Although  the  scanty  remains  of  antique  painting  do  not 
permit  a  sure  comparison,  it  is  probable  that  the  painting 
of  the  ancients  as  an  independent  art  was  inferior  to  their 
sculpture,  which  might,  however,  use  color  or  rich  ma- 
terials like  gold  and  ivory  to  enhance  its  beauty.  Sculp- 
ture had  the  closer  affinity  with  the  Hellenic  genius,  and 
would  seem  to  have  been  more  highly  prized  by  the  com- 
posite Graeco-Roman  taste. 

The  opposite  was  to  prove  true  of  Christian  Italy. 
From  the  fourth  century,  mosaic,  rather  than  sculpture, 
was  employed  to  tell  the  sacred  story,  express  the  Chris- 
tian faith. ^  Mosaic  continued  the  chief  vehicle  of  expres- 
sion in  the  Greek  Christian,  or  Byzantine,  art,  whether 
practiced  in  Constantinople,  Sicily  or  Italy.  In  Italy, 
with  the  revival  of  civilization,  sculpture  was  the  first  to 
blossom  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was  to  continue  as 
a  chosen  vessel  for  the  self-expression  of  the  Italian 
genius.  Yet  painting  overtook  it,  surrounded  and  en- 
veloped it  with  quickly  budding  myriad  energies,  answer- 
ing to  the  universal  Italian  love  of  painted  forms.  And 
if  it  was  the  nature  of  the  Italians  to  see  their  ideas,  or 
find  them,  in  forms  and  images,  then  painting  was  the 
most  facile  means  of  expressing  those  pictorial  ideas  on 
church  walls  and  palaces.  Yet  the  fact  that  painting 
could  perform  this  function  more  quickly  and  at  less  ex- 
pense than  sculpture  scarcely  explains  why  painting  be- 
came, and  never  ceased  to  be,  the  supreme  expression  of 
Italy.  The  Italian  genius  unfolded  itself  most  com- 
pletely in  painting,   found  in  it  scope   for  the  study  of 

6  Was  mosaic  better  adapted  than  sculpture  to  give  such  ample  expres- 
sion of  the  Christian  matter  as  was  demanded?  Possibly.  Yet  where 
the  national  genius  ran  to  sculpture  rather  than  painting,  sculpture  was 
the  chief  means  employed,  as  on  French  Gothic  cathedrals;  and  who  shall 
say  that  it  did  not  do  its  office  as  effectively  and  as  beautifully  as  mosaic, 
or  fresco  painting? 


ii:i  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

human  beings  and  of  the  circumambient  world;  found  in 
it  scope  and  satisfaction  for  its  love  of  the  gorgeous  and 
the  visibly  delightful,  and  for  its  love  of  ideal,  harmon- 
ious, even  formal  beauty,  by  which  its  continuance  of  the 
Greek  spirit  was  made  clear. 

Notwithstanding  this  affinity  with  Greek  art  and  the 
many  lessons  which  Italian  painting  drew  from  it,  along 
with  its  adoption  of  antique  patterns  and  figures,  the 
course  of  Itahan  painting  was  one  of  organic  growth,  a 
clear  and  free  self-expression  of  the  Italian  people. 
Painters  and  those  who  wrote  about  them,  and  the  peo- 
ple who  delighted  in  their  works,  regarded  the  progress 
of  painting  as  progress  in  the  imitation  or  portrayal  of 
nature,  until  the  painters  should  achieve  its  perfect  ren- 
dering in  their  pictures.  This  view  of  the  matter,  which 
seems  to  be  the  view  of  Leonardo  as  well  as  Vasari,  must 
be  taken  with  all  the  observations  and  explanations  in 
which  Leonardo  enwrapped  it,  and  the  qualifications 
which  he  made  and  illustrated  in  his  practice.  First  of 
all,  the  many  ways  of  "  imitating  "  nature  should  be  re- 
membered, and  the  vast  and  varied  range  of  the  objects 
of  imitation.  Beyond  the  visages  and  forms  of  man  in 
infinite  variety,  "  nature  "  includes  animals  and  trees, 
herbs,  grass  and  rocks,  all  the  natural  objects  in  a  land- 
scape, and  such  works  of  man  as  buildings.  To  paint  all 
these  as  they  are,  it  is  necessary  to  observe  linear  and 
aerial  perspective,  and  paint,  or  "  imitate,"  the  atmos- 
phere, its  light  and  shade  and  color,  clouds,  sunsets,  rain- 
bows, darkness,  and  all  the  phenomena  of  the  air. 

Moreover,  in  order  to  imitate  these  matters  truly, 
which  include  the  facts  of  human  life  and  the  actions  of 
human  beings,  the  "  imitation  "  must  embrace  congruous 
grouping  and  arrangement,  composition.  And  if  the 
painter  is  to  rise  to  the  portrayal  of  beauty,  that  is,  to  the 
idealizing  of  the  objects  of  his  art,  he  must  have  mastered 
their  particular  realities,  before  he  can  advance  to  per- 
fection, which  is  beauty,  along  the  lines  of  nature's  truth. 
To  this  end,  besides  the  idealizing  choice  of  types  and 
elements,  he  must  attain  to  principles  of  inclusion  and 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  113 

exclusion,  to  the  high  notes  of  unity  in  composition,  that 
he  may  present  his  theme  consonantly  and  perfectly,  with 
the  fewest  possible  detractions  or  distractions.  It  is  in 
the  presentation  of  forms  and  colors  pleasing  to  the  eye, 
as  well  as  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  his  theme,  that  he 
will  be  likely  to  reach  principles  and  realizations  of  pic- 
torial composition,  which  will  bring  his  painting  into 
agreement  with  those  modes  of  Greek  art  which  also  had 
passed  onward,  through  somewhat  analogous  stages,  to  a 
like  attainment.  For  example,  when  the  purpose  of  a 
composition  is  to  present  a  significant  event,  the  inter- 
est and  action  would  increase  toward  the  centre  of  the 
design,  and  decline  to  quietude  at  the  extremities.  Leon- 
ardo da  Vinci  never  saw  the  eastern  pediment  of  the 
Parthenon;  but  in  his  Last  Supper,  in  Milan,  from  the 
comparative  quiescence  of  the  disciple  at  either  end  of 
the  table,  the  eye  is  led  on  through  the  excited  action  of 
the  other  disciples  to  the  contrasted  and  momentous  calm 
of  the  Christ  at  the  centre  who  has  spoken.  All  this  pre- 
sents a  spiritual  analogy  to  the  pedimental  grouping  of 
the  figures  which  set  forth  the  birth  of  Athene:  wherein 
the  action  and  interest  culminate  at  the  centre,  and  lit- 
erally slope  down  to  quietude  and  contemplation  in  the 
figures  toward  the  extremities  of  the  triangle. 

Leonardo's  exhaustive  notes,  or  treatise,  upon  the  study 
of  nature  for  the  purposes  of  painting  indicate  what  paint- 
ing as  an  imitation  of  nature  might  signify  and  include. 
The  complete  and  perfect  imitation  of  all  natural  phe- 
nomena is  inculcated  and  elaborately  illustrated  from 
such  penetrating  observation  of  natural  appearances  as 
perhaps  none  other  ever  made.  "  Darkness,  light,  body 
and  color,  form  and  position,  distance  and  nearness,  move- 
ment and  rest, —  this  little  work  of  mine  will  be  a  tissue 
of  these  attributes,  recording  for  the  painter  the  rule  and 
method  by  which  his  art  should  imitate  all  these  things, 
the  works  of  Nature  and  ornament  of  the  world."  "^  So 
he  investigates  perspective  "  the  best  guide  to  painting," 

'^  J.  p.  Richter,  Literary  Works  of  Leonardo  da  Find,  §  23. 


114  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

perspective  both  linear  and  aerial;  then  light  and  shade 
and  color,  the  appearance  of  trees  and  other  natural  ob- 
jects, the  proportions  and  movements  of  the  human  fig- 
ure, and  all  of  this  with  wonderful  care  and  minuteness, 
and  accompanied  with  such  drawings  as  may  not  be  found 
elsewhere.  There  is  no  detail  so  slight  as  not  to  be 
worthy  of  the  painter's  study,  whether  in  the  muscles  of 
the  human  body,  in  the  modulations  of  shadows  or  of  the 
lustre  and  transparency  of  a  leaf.^  It  is  fundamental  in 
painting  that  the  objects  shall  stand  out,  appear  in  re- 
lief, show  natural  modelling;  and  that  the  backgrounds 
and  distances  be  shown  in  true  perspective.  In  judging 
a  picture,  the  first  thing  to  consider  is  whether  the  figures 
have  the  relief  required  by  their  position  and  the  light 
which  falls  on  them;  next  the  distribution  of  the  figures, 
and  whether  they  are  arranged  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
story,  and  thirdly,  whether  each  is  doing  its  part.^ 

Obviously  excellence  of  grouping,  with  each  feature  of 
the  picture  performing  its  function,  is  part  of  a  truthful 
imitation  of  nature,  and  leads  on  to  that  idealizing  and 
ennobling  imitation,  which  selects  and  combines  that 
which  is  most  beautiful  or  effective. ^^ 

At  this  point  one  touches  Leonardo's  virtual  qualifica- 
tions to  his  general  principle  of  fidelity  to  nature,  qualifi- 
cations which  his  own  painting  tacitly  exemplified.  The 
painter  argues  and  vies  with  nature  -^  disputa  e  gareggia 
—  says  he.^^  He  will  try  to  improve  upon  her,  excel  her 
if  he  can,  in  his  endeavor  to  paint  what  is  significant, 
noble,  and  beautiful.  This  Leonardo  did,  and  Raphael, 
and  Michelangelo,  and  Titian.  In  order  to  make  his 
painting  effective,  the  painter  will  even,  literally  and  me- 
ticulously speaking,  falsify  nature,  by  altering  or  omitting 
such  details  of  appearance  as  actually  may  be  seen  in  na- 
ture, but  which  blunt  the  effectiveness  of  his  painting,  ob- 
scure the  form  or  contour  of  his  conception  or  of  the  chief 

8  lb.  §§  148  sgq.,  363,  365,  423  sqg. 
Mb.  §§  17,  554. 

10  See  e.g.  lb.  §§  587,  588,  592,  593- 
"  lb.  §  662. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  115 

objects  by  which  he  designs  to  present  It.  Leonardo  says 
this  substantially;  and  this  he  also  did,  and  Raphael  and 
Michelangelo  and  Titian. 

Nevertheless  that  the  principle  of  fidelity,  or  the  higher 
fidelity,  to  nature  must  In  general  obtain,  Leonardo  shows 
In  a  pregnant  paragraph  upon  the  course  of  Italian  paint- 
ing: The  painter's  work  will  have  little  merit  if  he 
merely  copies  another  artist;  but  only  if  he  studies  from 
nature.  The  painters  after  the  Romans  Imitated  each 
other,  and  art  declined.  "  Then  came  Giotto  the  Floren- 
tine who  was  not  content  to  imitate  the  works  of  his 
master  CImabue  .  .  .  but  began  to  draw  on  the  rocks  the 
actions  of  the  goats  he  kept."  He  drew  all  the  ani- 
mals in  the  country  till  after  much  study  he  surpassed  the 
masters  of  his  time  and  of  many  centuries  before  him. 
After  him,  art  declined  again  by  copying  what  had  been 
done,  until  Masaccio,  a  Florentine,  "  showed  by  his  per- 
fect work  how  those  who  take  any  guide  but  nature,  mis- 
tress of  masters,  weary  themselves  In  vain."  ^^ 

So  Leonardo  brings  us  to  this  remarkable  Masaccio, 
who  looked  Into  the  face  of  nature  and  saw  more  per- 
fectly than  anyone  before  him  how  painting  should  imi- 
tate. Vasari  says  that  he  painted  things  as  they  are,  and 
was  the  first  to  make  his  figures  stand  firmly  on  their  feet. 
He  individualized  his  people,  making  them  look  real;  and 
greatly  Improved  his  perspective,  giving  his  pictures  at- 
mospheric depth.  Every  figure  has  its  place  where  there 
is  room  for  It,  not  merely  for  the  part  which  shows,  but 
for  the  rest  of  the  figure  remaining  Invisible  behind  an- 
other form.  Light  and  shadow  have  become  important 
In  his  painting,  as  they  are  in  every  actual  scene.  So  this 
young  genius  expressed  his  understanding  of  the  face 
of  nature,  and  died,  not  much  over  twenty-seven,  about 
the  year  1428,  leaving  those  frescoes  in  the  Carmine  at 
Florence  to  be  studied  by  all  Italian  painters  of  his  own 
time  and  long  after  him. 

Masaccio  marks  a  stage  in  the  progress  of  painting  to- 
ward that  complete  and  perfect  modelling  which  Leon- 

12  lb.  §  660. 


ii6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ardo  held  to  be  the  "  soul  of  painting,"  and  exemplified 
in  his  Mona  Lisa.  After  Masaccio,  or  in  his  time,  others 
worked  diligently,  bringing  out  their  understanding  of 
how  things  looked,  and  endeavoring  to  arrange  and  paint 
them  beautifully,  decoratively;  sometimes  raising  their 
types,  and  even  trying  to  educe  the  soul.  Such  a  one  was 
Fra  Angelico,  born  before  Masaccio  and  long  outliving 
him.  Of  a  truth  he  was  a  saintly  soul,  and  one  whose 
constant  study  and  subtle  skill  invested  with  loveliness 
and  saintliness  the  forms  he  painted.  All  his  long  life 
( I '^ 87-145  5)  he  observed  and  studied.  Starting  from 
idyllic  sweetness,  he  progressed  year  by  year,  improv- 
ing the  shading  of  his  backgrounds,  thus  beautifying  them 
with  truth.  He  raises  the  ordered  composition  of  his 
pictures,  as  in  the  UffizI  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  and  the 
Last  Judgment  in  the  Academy  at  Florence.  He  ad- 
vances in  the  individualizing  of  figures  and  the  rendering 
of  expression,  and  in  the  naturalness  of  his  grouping,  even 
reaching  that  impressive  and  beautifully  composed  group- 
ing which  may  still  harmonize  with  the  natural.  Hav- 
ing impressed  the  walls  of  his  Convent,  San  Marco,  with 
an  intensive  and  hitherto  unpalnted  saintliness,  he  put  his 
very  last  pictorial  attainment  into  the  Preaching  of  St. 
Stephen  and  the  Saint's  Martyrdom,  in  Pope  Nicholases 
Chapel  In  the  Vatican. ^^  Thus  through  his  art,  and  as 
it  were  progressively,  Fra  Angelico  expresses  his  own 
lovely  nature,  which  was  a  painter's  also,  and  imbued 
with  the  instinct  of  beauty  and  the  passion  to  see  and 
paint  appearances. 

After  Masaccio,  in  Florence,  a  realistic  and  more 
analytical  study  of  things  went  on  with  Paolo  Uccello 
and  the  Pollajuoli.  Then  painting  turns  toward  a  full 
expression  of  the  vivid  life  of  Florence  In  the  quattro- 
cento, which  shall  be  painted  in  its  whole  pageantry  and 
individual  dellghtfulness.  Upon  this  alluring  actuality 
of  street  life  about  him,  as  well  as  upon  Masaccio's  fres- 
coes, Is  turned  the  gifted  though  over-greedy  eye  of  the 
Carmelite,   Fra  Lippo  Lippi.     He  is  delightful  in  his 

J3  See  generally  Langton  Douglas,  Fra  Angelico   (London,  1900). 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  117 

cheerful  human  rendering  of  sacred  themes;  a  portrait 
painter  always,  yet  executing  many  lovely  altar  pieces 
filled  with  pleasing  women,  he  approached  great  com- 
position in  his  decoration  of  the  Prato  Duomo,  even  at- 
taining it,  and  with  a  more  refined  beauty,  in  the  Annun- 
ciation in  the  Duomo  at  Spoleto.  A  little  younger  than 
Fra  Lippo,  was  Benozzo  Gozzoli,  who  put  life's  cheer- 
ful pageantry  into  the  anything  but  sacred  scenes  of  the 
Riccardi  chapel.  Still  younger  were  Ghirlandajo  and 
Botticelli.  Both  were  students  of  Fra  Lippo  as  well  as 
of  Masaccio's  frescoes,  and  both  were  to  become  famous 
and  significant  painters.  No  painter  has  rendered  on  so 
ample  a  scale  the  complete  life  of  quattrocento  Florence 
as  Ghirlandajo  (1449-1498),  a  man  of  extraordinary 
aptness  and  facility  in  composition,  who,  with  his  pupils, 
covered  a  goodly  acreage  of  surface,  and  sometimes  with 
admirable  pictures.  His  Calling  of  Peter  and  Andrew  on 
the  wall  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  is  scarcely  surpassed  by  any 
of  those  compositions  over  which  arches  Michelangelo's 
ceiling.  His  best  known,  and  most  amply  illustrative 
work  fills  the  choir  of  S.  Maria  Novella.  Among  those 
quite  delightful  pictures.  The  Birth  of  the  Virgin  excels  in 
deftness  of  general  composition  and  in  the  beauty  of  the 
figures.  Yet  Ghirlandajo's  pleasing  rendering  of  the  de- 
tail and  incident  of  life,  which  made  him  a  great  painter 
of  genre,  scantily  covers  the  incongruity  between  his 
gaiety  and  the  sacred  themes.  In  spite  of  his  cheerful 
attractiveness,  the  thoughtful  mind  may  be  disturbed  by 
a  certain  pervasive  irrationality,  or  at  least  by  the  incom- 
plete rationalizing  of  his  composition.  He  does  not  ob- 
ject to  irrelevancy  of  detail  and  corner  incident,  an  ir- 
relevancy which  will  serve  as  contrast  to  the  more  strictly 
drawn  principles  of  composition  and  mightier  harmony 
of  design  already  showing  in  Leonardo,  and  to  attain 
more  obvious  splendor  in  Raphael.  Yet  Ghirlandajo  of- 
fers a  brilliant  expression  of  himself  and  of  his  quattro- 
cento Florence. 

A  very  different  painter  and  human  being  was  Sandro 
Botticelli  (1444-15 10),  to  whom  Ghirlandajo's  success- 


ii8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ful  and  rather  superficial  art  may  have  been  a  spiritual 
thorn.  Yet  he  was  a  cheerful  soul,  beneath  his  rather 
sad  and  pregnant  painting.  The  charmed  study  of  the 
classics,  pervading  a  Florence  ruled  by  Lorenzo  dei 
Medici,  and  by  Politian  in  the  humanities,  affected  Bot- 
ticelli as  a  new  and  high  romance.  He  was  touched  by 
the  joyful-sad  vibrations  of  their  poetry,  by  Politian's 
Orfeo  and  his  "  Ben  venga  Maggio,"  and  why  not  by 
Lorenzo's  "  Triumph  of  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,"  begin- 
ning: 

Quant'  e  bella  giovinezza, 

Che  si  fugge  tuttavia. 

His  later  life  was  as  deeply  moved  by  the  strident  elo- 
quence, and  then  the  fate,  of  Savonarola.  Yet  Bot- 
ticelli, in  some  saddened  sense,  remained  Botticelli,  and 
still  felt  and  thought  either  in  allegories  or  in  images 
which  were  living  symbols.  His  Judith  seems  as  much  a 
symbol  as  his  Fortezza.  Pallas  crushing  the  Centaur, 
but  not  with  physical  force,  whether  it  signified  Lorenzo's 
victory  over  the  Pazzi  (1478),  at  least  symbolized  much 
that  then  was  pressing  to  expression  in  the  painter's 
phantasy.  A  puzzled  sense  of  life's  loveliness  and  pathos 
speaks  unspoken  from  the  face  and  form  of  Venus  — 
newly  born?  one  doubts  it.  The  Spring  is  sheer  al- 
legory, classical  in  its  provenance,  romantic  in  its  quality; 
and  the  Calumny  is  allegory  so  completely  veiled  that 
men  have  felt  impelled  to  link  it  with  the  unjust  destruc- 
tion of  Savonarola.  But  Botticelli  was  a  splendid 
draughtsman  too,  having  early  learned  his  lesson  from 
Antonio  Pollajuolo;  and  he  showed  the  resources  of  his 
composition  in  those  scenes  from  the  life  of  Moses, 
painted  by  him  in  the  Sistine  Chapel.  Leonardo  re- 
proved him  for  belittling  landscape,  and  thinking  it  a 
thing  that  might  be  done  offhand.  Botticelli  did  not  set 
himself  to  that  as  he  did  to  his  Madonnas,  and  to  his 
boys  or  angels,  and  to  his  Venus  which  allures  as  through 
some  subtler  sense-fascination  working  within  the  veil 
of  flesh.     His  phantasy  which  pervades  his  apprehension 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  119 

of  the  antique,  his  very  personal  imagination  and  in- 
dwelling mood,  find  expression  in  these  forms  through  this 
painter's  mastery  of  a  significant  and  speaking  line. 

A  different  reflection  of  the  antique  was  brought  to 
masterful  expression  in  the  painting  of  another  man, 
Mantegna  (1430-1506),  the  Paduan  who  worked  so 
long  at  Mantua.  His  painting  drew  lessons  from  the 
sculpture  of  Donatello  who  came  to  Padua  in  1443,  and 
executed  his  equestrian  statue  of  Gattamalata.  This  uni- 
versal Donatello  was  a  gluttonous  observer  of  nature,  and 
here  Mantegna  gained  from  him;  but  the  antique  had 
not  failed  to  work  upon  the  sculptor  and  his  fellows: 
Alberti  says  that  "  the  spirit  of  the  ancients  passed  into 
the  frames  of  Ghiberti,  Brunelleschi,  Donatello  and  Ma- 
saccio,  and  fitted  them  for  the  most  honorable  enter- 
prises." ^* 

Mantegna  absorbed  the  plastic  qualities  of  Donatello 
and  of  the  antique  sculpture,  showing  them  even  in  his 
early  frescoes  in  the  Eremitani  chapel  in  Padua,  executed 
before  he  went  in  1459  ^^  serve  the  Gonzagas  at  Mantua. 
He  could  paint  action  naturally,  and  was  a  great  por- 
trayer  of  individualities  when  the  task  was  set  him,  for 
example,  to  paint  Lodovico  Gonzaga  and  his  family. 
But  he  had  always  been,  and  more  and  more  became  a 
student  of  ancient  monuments  and  a  signal  lover  of  the 
antique  and  its  qualities.  No  painter  before  him  had  so 
masterfully  brought  the  lines  and  motives  and  emblems 
of  antique  art  into  effective  union  with  his  own,  one 
might  say,  classic  genius.  He  is  the  great  quattrocento 
painter  who  advances  to  that  beauty  which  rises  above 
the  charms  of  the  Individual  and  above  the  so  humanly 
attractive  painting  which  delights  In  them.  Mantegna 
rises  above  such  actual  or  Imagined  portraiture,  as  Leon- 
ardo will  rise,  and  Raphael  and  Michelangelo.  He  has 
likewise  made  his  own  advances  toward  their  greater  art 
in  the  high  unity  of  his  composition  and  the  discarding  of 
distracting  Incident.  Such  classic  self-expression  of  Man- 
tegna may  be  seen  In  the  historical  composition  of  the 

14  Quoted  by  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle. 


I20  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Triumph  of  Caesar,  what  there  is  left  of  it,  in  Hampton 
Court,  and  in  the  mythological  Parnassus  in  the  Louvre. 

Art  is  the  best  criticism  of  art;  and  never  was  so  great 
criticism  passed  on  the  previous  manner  and  achievement 
of  painting  as  that  contained  in  the  work  of  those  three 
great  men  whose  names  have  just  been  set  together. 
Two  of  them  (not  Raphael,  who  was  altogether  a 
painter)  were  capable  of  criticism  in  words;  a  more  final 
judgment  lay  in  their  painting,  and  the  manner  in  which 
it  lifted  itself  above  much  that  had  been  and  still  was 
popular.  So  lofty  and  so  ideal  became  the  painting  and 
sculpture  of  these  three  great  artists  and  certain  of  their 
fellows,  that  it  indirectly  compels  attention  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  society  in  which  they  had  their  being,  and  the 
effect  of  it  in  promoting  or  hindering  their  attainment. 

There  are  different  phases  of  personality  within  that 
mysterious  form  which  cloaks  a  so-called  individual  —  as 
may  be  seen,  outside  of  Italy,  amply  illustrated  in  many  an 
English  Elizabethan.  The  same  is  true  of  a  people,  or 
of  what  we  call  the  genius  of  a  race.  If  its  phases  are 
indeed  parts  of  an  unity,  at  least  they  appear  separable 
and  distinct  one  from  another.  The  virtues  of  mind  and 
disposition,  all  the  positive  and  exemplary  elements  of 
human  being,  rarely  work  together  either  in  an  individual 
or  a  people.  Some  of  them  may  exist  in  marked  degree, 
while  others,  which  might  seem  their  normal  concomi- 
tants, are  as  noticeably  v/anting.  One  might  ideally  hope 
to  find  intellectual  power  accompanying  a  correspondingly 
large  benevolence;  one  might  expect  the  religious  sense 
of  reverence  and  dependence  on  the  divine  to  be  associated 
with  the  social  virtues,  for  which  it  sometimes  is  a  sub- 
stitute; and  still  more  reasonably  might  one  look  for  a 
close  association  between  beauty  of  character  and  a  delight 
In  the  beauty  of  visible  things  and  their  representations. 
But  we  know  that  these  wished  for  conjunctions  fail  quite 
as  often  as  they  greet  us  in  the  records. 

The  universal  Italian  delight  In  all  the  delightful  things 
of  form  and  color  which  may  be  created,  fashioned,  or 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  121 

put  together  by  human  craft,  bore  slight  relationship  to 
civic  virtue.  It  was  connected  with  Italian  religious 
feeling,  because  that  demanded  images,  delighted  in  them, 
functioned  by  means  of  them.  It  was  akin  to  the  Italian 
critical  sense,  or  reason,  in  so  far  as  that  employed  itself 
upon  the  pleasure-giving  qualities  of  the  products  of  hu- 
man art. 

Another  point  of  comparison:  in  a  large  way  Eliza- 
bethan plays  accorded  with  the  popular  taste  and  the  ap- 
provals and  disapprovals  issuing  from  the  English  mind 
and  character.  But  many  of  the  plays,  especially  those 
which  were  Italianate,  did  not  represent  the  ethics  of  the 
audience.  The  audience,  listening  to  Webster's  White 
Devil  or  Duchess  of  Mai  fey,  might  enjoy  upon  the  stage 
what  it  neither  was  nor  approved  of.  Likewise  Italian 
painting  assuredly  corresponded  with  Italian  taste,  and 
yet  its  themes  and  the  beauty  and  loveliness  of  their  pres- 
entation might  bear  no  obvious  resemblance  to  the  charac- 
ters of  the  men  who  ordered  the  paintings  and  took 
pleasure  In  them.  These  paintings  were  what  they  liked, 
agreeing  with  their  tastes  rather  than  their  morals. 
Pietro  Aretino  (1492-1557),  the  blackmailing  litterateur 
who  plied  his  vile  trade  from  the  tolerant  security  of 
Venice,  was  an  intimate  of  Titian  and  an  excellent  critic 
of  painting;  he  was  very  sensitive  to  the  beauties  of  Vene- 
tian sunsets,  and  could  describe  them  charmingly. 

Nor  were  Italian  paintings  necessarily  a  reflection  of 
the  moral  natures  of  the  painters  themselves.  One  may 
fall  back  on  the  Aristotelian-scholastic  thought,  as  given 
by  Aquinas:  Ars  est  recta  ratio  factlbllium  —  the  right 
reason,  or  way,  of  making  things  that  are  makeable.  In 
itself  ars  is  innocent  —  the  locus  innocentiae  —  In  the 
sense  that  the  making  of  a  thing,  the  building  of  a  house 
or  the  painting  of  a  picture,  is  not  an  act  of  ethical  import; 
Is  neither  moral  nor  immoral,  righteous  or  wicked. 

It  was  not  the  moral  natures  of  the  Italians,  or  their 
truthfulness,  their  civic  loyalty  and  patriotism  (which 
were  conspicuously  lacking)  that  painted  their  beautiful 
pictures.     It  was  Italian  love  and  genius  for  painting. 


122  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  genius,  the  heaven  bestowed  grace  of  form,  was 
theirs.  They  succeeded  more  splendidly  in  painting  than 
in  their  poetry  and  belles  lettres,  where  form  seems  won 
at  the  expense  of  substance.  Indeed  in  their  writing,  form 
stands  out  plastically.  In  Castlgllone's  famous  book,  the 
qualities,  the  equipment,  the  manners  of  a  perfect  Cour- 
tier appear  as  forms  visible  and  pleasing  to  the  eye. 

Painting  and  sculpture  naturally  change  their  style  and 
manner,  and  incidentally  their  aims,  as  they  move  on  to  a 
culmination.  The  painters  of  the  quattrocento  had 
shown  individual  differences  In  conception,  method,  and 
achievement,  according  to  their  faculties  and  tempera- 
ments. Their  painting  had  been  an  expression  of  them- 
selves, and  withal  an  image  of  the  tastes  and  fancies  of 
the  time.  Italy  had  been  growing  richer;  had  been  con- 
stantly increasing  the  assets  of  her  civilization.  There 
was  ampler  means  to  indulge  the  taste  for  painting  and 
remunerate  the  painters.  Little  had  occurred  to  check 
life's  happy  effervescence.  The  last  decade  of  the  cen- 
tury opened  as  a  glad  climacteric,  at  Florence  especially; 
but  was  to  end  In  perturbation.  Lorenzo  dei  Medici  died 
in  1492,  and  his  great  scholars  soon  followed  him  to  the 
tomb.  The  French  invasion  came,  with  its  easy  over- 
throw of  states,  to  demonstrate  insultingly  Italian  weak- 
nesses. With  their  Medici  for  the  time  expelled,  the 
Florentines,  scared  by  the  demonstrations  of  Savonarola, 
rather  calamitously  abandoned  art  for  goodness;  then 
they  burned  the  prophet,  as  they  had  burned  their  finery, 
and  returned  to  earth  and  art.  In  Milan  quite  as  rude 
events  took  place  a  little  later,  and  the  Moro  (Lodovico 
Sforza)  passed  to  a  dungeon  at  Loches,  with  the  shame 
of  Italy's  invasion  on  his  head.  Cesare  Borgia  too,  after 
his  baleful  meteor  course,  had  flitted  to  a  prison  In  Spain. 
Such  object  lessons  might  damp  the  Italian  mood.  Per- 
haps sobering  Spanish  manners  were  entering  the  high 
society,  which  possibly  looked  for  a  more  sedate  decora- 
tion of  its  habitation.  Perhaps  some  Influence  flowed 
from  the  new  study  of  Plato. 

It  is  hard  to  bring  such  events  or  changes,  local  or 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  123 

general,  to  bear  upon  the  progress  and  mounting  style  of 
Italian  painting.  Rather,  we  see  the  advance  taking  to 
itself  the  previous  attainment,  and  as  from  its  milieu  ris- 
ing to  its  culmination.  It  even  re-asserts  its  affinity  with 
the  earlier  achievements  of  Giotto  and  of  Masaccio, 
which  Leonardo  recognized  as  epoch-making.  But  most 
assuredly  this  supreme  advance  was  due  to  the  genius  of 
three  men,  and  to  the  significant  work  of  contemporary 
craftsmen.  The  careers  of  these  three  began,  indeed 
that  of  Leonardo  reached  its  meridian,  in  the  quattro- 
cento. Born  in  1452,  Leonardo's  Last  Supper  was 
painted  before  the  century  closed.  Michelangelo,  born 
in  1475,  passed  the  susceptible  and  pregnant  years  of 
youth  at  work  among  the  art  treasures  of  Lorenzo,  as- 
sociating with  his  great  Platonlsts,  before  Lorenzo  died  in 
1492.  Raphael  was  born  in  1483;  he  also  had  much 
to  learn  before  the  sixteenth  century  ushered  in  his 
eighteenth  year.  His  feet  were  planted  in  the  quattro- 
cento; schooled  in  its  art,  he  took  its  lessons  with  him 
even  to  his  fresco-painting  in  the  Vatican. 

The  creations  of  these  men  of  genius  —  their  self-ex- 
pression —  can  neither  be  detached  from  their  enabling 
antecedents  nor  accounted  for  by  them.  Their  work 
passed  onward  from  what  had  been  done;  it  asserted  its 
affinity  with  what  was  most  significant  in  the  past:  at  the 
same  time  it  was  distinct  creation.  Their  art  opened  new 
depths  of  truthfulness  in  the  modeling  of  natural  objects 
invested  with  the  verities  of  light  and  shadow.  Their 
genius  realized  the  beauty  and  the  profound  representa- 
tive significance  of  the  human  form,  which  their  art  ren- 
dered with  intrinsic  dignity  and  lofty  graclousness.  They 
intensified  the  import  of  its  movements  and  postures. 
They  grouped  human  forms  and  other  matter  of  their 
compositions  beautifully,  so  as  to  give  pleasure  to  the 
eye,  and  functionally,  so  as  to  contribute  to  the  action  of 
the  piece.  They  avoided  irrelevance  and  distraction, 
and  kept  all  things  true  to  the  master  motive  of  their 
composition. 

The  mind  of  Leonardo,  analytic,  curious  as  to  all  things 


124  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

visible  and  their  effective  relationships,  the  mind  to  which 
there  was  nothing  negligible  or  unimportant;  the  eye  to 
which  likewise  there  was  nothing  insignificant  or  unim- 
pressive, an  eye  that  discerned  more  subtleties  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  things  than  ever  had  been  imagined;  the  artist 
temper  delighting  in  the  import  and  beauty  of  appear- 
ances, eager  to  fix  their  fleeting  loveliness;  the  deft  finesse 
of  hand  which  could  execute,  change,  or  retract  whatever 
might  be  supplied  by  eye  or  mind;  and  then  the  re-com- 
posing, intensifying,  creative  faculty  which  could  present 
the  inclusive  and  enduring  v^erities  of  the  human  person- 
ality, and  the  moment  of  supreme  import  in  the  human 
drama  —  such  may  have  been  the  qualities  of  this,  in  all 
respects  wonderful,  Leonardo,  through  which  he  brought 
painting  to  a  perfection  never  before  realized,  and  in  its 
intimate  intent  and  execution  not  to  be  surpassed. 

Leonardo  was  a  true  Italian,  to  whom  vision,  the  func- 
tion of  the  corporeal  eye,  the  sense  of  sight,  was  the  chief 
purveyor  both  of  pleasure  and  of  knowledge  of  the  world. 
Under  its  instigation  worked  the  investigating,  re-produc- 
ing and  constructive  hand;  both  eye  and  hand  reporting 
the  data  of  their  visual  and  tactile  inquiry  to  the  common 
sense  which  dwells  behind  the  other  senses,  and  judges  and 
compares  the  testimony  of  its  five  instruments.^^  Paint- 
ing is  the  means  and  art  par  excellence  which  captures 
and  preserves  the  phenomena  of  the  visible  world  —  le 
opere  di  natura  —  for  future  pleasure  and  enlighten- 
ment, and  presents  them  as  they  are  in  reality. 

"  He  who  disparages  painting,  the  sole  imitator  of  all 
the  visible  works  of  nature,  of  a  surety  disparages  a 
subtle  invention,  which  with  philosophy  and  subtle  specu- 
lation, considers  all  the  qualities  of  forms,  backgrounds 
and  settings  (arie  e  siti),  plants,  animals,  herbs  and  flow- 
ers,  which    are   enveloped   in   shadow    and   light.     And 

15  .  .  .  I'occhio  riceve  le  spezie  overo  similitudini  delli  obbietti,  e  d^lli 
alia  imprensiva,  e  da  essa  imprensiva  al  senso  commune,  e  11  e  giudicata. 
E.  Solmi,  Leonardo-Frammenti  (Florence,  Barbera,  1904)  p.  241. 
L'occhio,  che  si  dice  finestra  dell'anima,  h  la  principale  via,  donde  11 
comune  senso  pu6  piu  copiosamente  e  magnificamente  considerare  le  infinite 
opere  di  natura.  ib.  p.  235. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  125 

truly  this  Is  the  science  and  legitimate  daughter  of  nature, 
because  painting  Is  born  from  Nature.  Or,  more  cor- 
rectly, we  should  call  it  Nature's  grandchild,  because  all 
visible  things  have  been  born  from  Nature,  from  which 
things  born  from  Nature  painting  is  born.  So  we  rightly 
call  it  grandchild  of  nature  and  kin  to  God."  ^^ 

But  the  painter  Is  no  sheer  copyist,  for  he  argues  and 
vies  with  nature.  He  shall  even  have  a  conception  In  his 
imagination,  an  idea,  a  composition,  and  bring  out  its  de- 
sign, and  build  It  up  so  that  it  may  express  his  idea ;  but 
with  all  his  figures  drawn  and  placed  In  true  perspective, 
and  executed  according  to  reason  and  natural  effects. ^"^ 

Such  statements  indicate  why  painting  was  one  of 
Leonardo's  dominant  passions,  and  through  what  courses 
of  reasoning  he  justified  his  profound  interest  in  It,  con- 
necting it  with  other  branches  of  his  scientific  inquiry  Into 
the  kinetic  values  and  relationships  of  things. 

It  was  Impossible  that  Leonardo  should  not  have  set 
painting  above  the  descriptions  and  narrations  of  poetry, 
being  an  Italian  man  to  whom  all  things  addressed  them- 
selves in  images, —  to  the  eye  and  tactile  hand,  rather 
than  In  words.  He  constantly  emphasizes  the  greater 
power,  directness,  and  Instantanelty  of  the  impressions 
of  sight,  as  compared  with  the  Infiltration  of  the  meaning 
of  words  through  the  ear  to  the  senso  commune.  Paint- 
ing presents  the  essence  of  Its  matter  in  a  single  Instant, 
and  all  at  once  gives  the  impression  of  the  natural  objects 
in  the  harmony  and  proportion  of  the  parts  and  the  whole 
which  they  compose. ^^ 

Leonardo  follows  again  the  genius  of  his  people  in 
judging  painting  to  be  superior  to  sculpture;  —  through 
its  *'  larger  mental  discourse,"  and  more  universal  powers 
of  representation;  through  its  means  of  linear  and  aerial 
perspective  and  power  of  bringing  the  remote  and  the 
near  into  the  same  composition;  and  because  of  its  beauty 
of  color  and  its  marvels  of  nuance  and  finesse.'^^ 

1^  Solmi,  Leonardo  o.  c.  p.  276. 
1^  Solmi,  o.  c.  p.  278. 
IS  Solmi,  o.  c.  pp.  233-251. 
19  Solmi,  o.  c.  pp.  289-297. 


126  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

His  own  painting  and  his  own  work  In  sculpture  never 
satisfied  Leonardo's  passion  for  fidelity  to  nature  and  for 
the  effective  presentation  of  the  modifying  conception  In 
his  mind.  His  love  of  beauty  might  omit  distracting  In- 
cidents In  order  to  enhance  the  impresslveness  of  the 
painted  reality.  He  had  always  realized  that  the  truth- 
ful apprehension  and  representation  of  the  outward  ap- 
pearance of  an  object  depends  upon  knowledge  of  its 
Inner  structure  and  organic  rationale,  whether  the  object 
be  living  or  inanimate.  Never  did  his  mind  cease  to 
impel  his  eye  and  hand  to  the  investigation  of  the  struc- 
tural or  causal  relationships  which  produced  the  outer 
appearance.  If  he  was  a  painter,  he  was  just  as  Integrally 
a  man  of  science,  and  Indeed  one  whose  curiosity  and 
passion  for  knowledge  constantly  checked  the  painter's 
productivity.  In  the  end,  the  man  of  science  mastered 
the  artist.-^  The  painting  and  the  sculpture  of  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  were  but  a  partial  self-expression  of  this  man  of 
Insatiable  Intellectual  curiosity  and  utterly  astounding  in- 
tellectual Insight. 

Leonardo,  painter  and  man  of  science,  lived  in  a  world 
of  nature's  works  (which  include  man),  as  well  as  in  his 
own  modifying  conceptions  of  these  natural  creations. 
But  he  who  Is  not  half  withdrawn  from  his  art  through 
following  after  knowledge  Infinite,  and  is  altogether 
painter,  may  build  a  world  more  completely  in  accord  with 
his  creative  sense  of  beauty  and  other  factors  of  his  plas- 
tic genius.  There  had  been  a  Giotto  world,  made  of  per- 
sonages whom  we  quickly  recognize  as  belonging  to  it. 
There  was  a  Fra  Angelico  world  of  blessed  saints :  —  who 
would  have  the  heart  to  exile  a  single  one  even  of  his  some- 
what less  blessed  damned  to  any  region  of  hard  actuality! 
There  was  a  cheerful  human  world  of  Fra  Fillppo,  an- 
other more  daintily  fashionable  of  Ghirlandajo,  and  a 
strange  world  of  Botticelli.  There  was  a  world  of  Peru- 
gino,  with  Its  admirably  composed  array  of  regularly 
beautiful  balanced  figures,  where  one  might  feel  scanted 
of  spiritual  or  vital  sustenance.     And  now  there  was  to  be 

20  See  post,  Chap.  XXXI. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  127 

a  world  of  Raphael,  indeed,  more  than  one  of  them. 
First  an  idyllic  world  like  Perugino's,  only  with  a  bit  more 
soul;  then  a  world  of  perfect  groupings,  mother  and 
child  and  often  the  young  John,  the  world  of  altogether 
lovely  Granduca  and  Del  Sedia  Madonnas  and  Belles 
Jardinieres;  and  then  a  finally  ennobled  world,  composed 
and  patterned  in  beauty,  and  peopled  with  beings  per- 
fected in  new  grace.  Compared  with  these  final  compo- 
sitions, those  of  other  painters  seemed  to  lack  life's  com- 
plete harmony;  in  the  presence  of  the  beings  who  filled 
them,  the  figures  of  previous  painters  might  seem  to  lack 
something  of  the  fullness  of  life's  comeliness.  This 
world  had  no  meticulous  realistic  insistences,  as  that  all 
things  in  it  should  submit  to  compass  and  yard  stick.  In 
that  great  cartoon  of  the  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes, 
had  the  two  boats  been  drawn  large  enough  to  hold  the 
Apostolic  fishers,  the  dramatic  greatness  of  these  human 
figures  would  have  been  sacrificed.  Yet  such  was  the 
visual  validity  and  appeal  of  this  final  pictorial  world  of 
Raphael  that  it  carried  no  suggestion  of  unreality.  Ra- 
phael's historical  personages  in  their  portraits,  a  Julius 
II,  a  Castiglione,  fit  in  to  this  same  world. 

Perhaps  nothing  lent  more  beauty  to  this  final  world  of 
Raphael  than  the  position  of  each  figure  in  it:  the  pleas- 
ing relative  position  as  well  as  posture  of  every  figure  in 
the  School  of  Athens,  for  example.  That  was  part  of  the 
nobiHty  of  the  whole  design,  the  visual  effect.  The  eye 
draws  as  great  pleasure  from  the  whole  picture  as  from 
the  beautiful  figures  that  fill  it  so  adequately,  and  neither 
crowd  nor  impede  or  jar  upon  each  other.  Thus  Raph- 
ael's supreme  faculty  of  pictorial  composition  found  ex- 
pression, and  the  efficient  harmonies  of  his  nature.  He 
felt  no  craving  for  novelty;  his  painting  sought  no  drastic 
innovation.  He  accepted  his  subjects  easily,  as  from 
tradition.  He  presents  them  with  more  potent  and  more 
beautiful  unison  of  composition  than  had  been  reached 
before.  Even  the  so  beautiful  and  so  telling  contrast  of 
gesture  between  the  arm  of  Plato  pointing  aloft  in  the 
School   of  Athens,   and   that   of  Aristotle   horizontally 


128  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

covering  the  field  of  nature's  works,  was  traditional  in 
literature,  though  it  might  never  have  been  so  shown  in 
fresco. 

In  Raphael  artistic  interest  and  creative  faculty  direct 
themselves  to  this  perfected  unison  of  composition,  this 
harmony  of  lovely  forms,  which  admits  neither  discord 
nor  irrelevance.  He  conceives  the  composition  as  a 
whole  throughout  its  parts;  he  represents  it  as  a  whole, 
and  as  a  whole  will  the  spectator  see  it.  It  is  simplified 
through  exclusion  of  the  impertinent,  and  yet  is  intensified 
and  given  dramatic  energy  through  the  presentation  of 
well  directed  contrasts  and  the  ennoblement  of  all  par- 
ticipating forms.  The  drapery  will  drape  and  render 
speaking,  but  neither  overload  nor  obscure,  the  action  of 
the  figures;  while  the  action  of  each  will  fit  so  perfectly 
into  the  action  of  the  others,  that  no  detail  can  be  altered 
without  disturbance  of  the  whole. 

In  all  these  qualities  the  compositions  of  Raphael  are 
approaching  the  noblest  manner  of  antique  sculpture,  but 
without  direct  or  conscious  imitation. ^^  His  painting, 
and  with  greater  emphasis,  the  sculpture  and  painting  of 
Michelangelo,  are  rising  to  the  level  of  the  work  of  Sco- 
pas  or  Praxiteles,  even  to  that  of  the  masters  of  the 
Parthenon.  The  great  art  of  Raphael  and  Michelangelo 
ascends  to  the  peak  of  excellence  reached  by  the  ancient 
masters,  not  necessarily  by  following  in  their  footsteps, 
but  by  climbing,  it  may  be,  the  opposite  side  of  the 
mountain. 

Of  a  surety  Italian  painting  had  never  been  ignorant  of 
the  antique,  had  never  been  slow  to  borrow  whatever 
figures  or  patterns  or  ideas  it  felt  impelled  to  use;  some- 

21  Of  course,  Raphael  borrowed  scores  of  antique  decorative  patterns, 
frankly  enough:  as  one  may  see  abundantly  in  the  Loggia  of  the  Vatican. 
And  sometimes  he  manifestly  imitates  the  ancient  sculpture,  as  in  the 
nude  figure  of  Apollo  (?)  in  the  niche  to  the  left  of  the  centre  in  the 
School  of  Athens.  But  in  the  grand  manner  of  his  composition  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  no  conscious  copying  of  the  antique.  Doubtless 
he  had  drawn  the  symmetry  of  his  compositions  from  Perugino  or  Fra 
Bartolommeo,  even  as  for  energy  in  action  he  drew  upon  Michelangelo 
and  Leonardo. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  129 

times  It  would  appear  mindful  of  the  antique  lessons,  and 
again  quite  disregardful  of  them.  Whatever  detail 
might  be  borrowed,  the  painting  of  Ghlrlandajo,  In  gen- 
eral motive,  form,  and  composition,  was  as  unantlque  as 
possible.  With  the  same  antique  background  behind 
them,  Raphael  and  Michelangelo  In  the  clear  develop- 
ment and  progress  of  their  Italian  arts  of  painting  and 
sculpture  approach  the  classical.  They  have  adopted,  and 
made  vitally  their  own,  principles  of  composition,  concep- 
tions of  beauty,  realistic  Idealizing  methods  of  compassing 
artistic  excellence,  all  Intimately  related  to  the  ways  of  an- 
cient sculptors.  But  if,  for  Instance,  Michelangelo  had 
any  direct  forbear,  It  was  SIgnorelll  and  no  antique  statue; 
and,  passing  over  the  disputes  as  to  details  of  his  early 
Instruction,  we  know  that  Raphael  first  Imitated  Perugino, 
then  availed  himself  of  what  he  could  learn  from  Floren- 
tine painting,  and  took  his  last  lessons  from  Michel- 
angelo. 

It  was  through  mastering  all  these  lessons,  and  the 
vital  absorption  Into  his  own  artistic  faculty  of  the  In- 
fluences composing  his  physical  and  spiritual  environment, 
that  Raphael,  prince  of  painters,  brought  to  expression 
the  last  possibilities  of  his  genius  —  of  himself;  the  last 
possibilities  v/hlch  he  might  realize  before  dying  at  the  age 
of  thirty-seven  in  the  year  1520,  to  the  grief  of  Italy. 

We  have  nothing  of  Raphael  that  reveals  him  except 
his  painting.  There  we  stop.  Leonardo  and  Michel- 
angelo have  left  much  besides, —  Leonardo  some  thou- 
sands of  pages  of  manuscript  which  disclose  the  workings 
of  his  mind.  Besides  Michelangelo's  poems,  there  are 
hundreds  of  his  letters,  many  to  his  father  and  brothers 
disclosing  his  devoted  and  querulous  affection,  and  his 
habit  of  living  miserably  and  complaining  of  it.  He 
writes  to  his  father  from  Rome  in  15  12:  "I  live  In  a 
miserable  fashion,  caring  neither  for  life  nor  for  honors 
.  .  .  and  I  suffer  excessive  hardships  assailed  by  a  thou- 
sand anxieties.  It  Is  now  about  fifteen  years  since  I  had 
an  hour's  repose,  and  all  that  I  have  ever  done  has  been 


I30  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

to  help  you;  and  you  have  never  .  .  .  believed  it.  God 
pardon  us  all."  ^- 

To  his  brother  Buonarroti:  "  I  live  here  surrounded 
by  the  greatest  anxieties,  suffering  the  greatest  bodily 
fatigues.  I  have  not  a  friend  of  any  sort,  and  I  do  not 
want  one;  I  have  not  so  much  time  as  suffices  for  me  to 
eat  the  necessary  food.  However,  I  trust  I  may  have  no 
additional  worries,  for  I  could  not  bear  another  ounce."  ^^ 

Michelangelo  did  live  miserably  at  Rome  and  else- 
where. While  working  on  Pope  Julius's  statue  at  Bo- 
logna, he  did  not  take  off  his  clothes  or  boots  for  weeks 
at  a  time,  and  slept  in  the  same  bed  with  his  three  work- 
men. On  removing  his  boots  the  skin  might  peel  off  with 
them.  His  letters  show  how  wretchedly  he  kept  himself, 
complaining  always.  He  was  difficult  and  violent  in  tem- 
per, suspicious,  thinking  that  people  were  cheating  him. 
He  was  nervous  and  timid.  When  about  twenty,  he 
cleared  out  of  Florence  with  a  man  who  had  had  bad 
dreams  of  the  coming  downfall  of  Piero  dei  Medici.-^ 
Thirty-five  years  later,  while  directing  the  fortifications 
of  his  city  during  the  fatal  siege,  he  fled  again,  suddenly, 
to  Venice;  a  letter  of  his  tells  about  it.^^  He  could  also 
be  very  prudent  politically,  avoiding  speech  with  the 
Florentine  exiles  at  Rome,  lest  it  compromise  him.^^ 

Such  apparent  weakness  of  character  may  be  only  indi- 
rectly relevant.  But  the  man's  virtues  were  touched  with 
weakness,  at  least  with  lack  of  judgment.  Michelangelo 
was  generous,  the  main  support  of  a  father  as  complain- 
ing as  himself;  he  was  always  helping  his  brothers  and  a 
nephew  whom  he  eventually  made  his  heir,  and  wrote 
quantities  of  letters  to,  the  following  among  them :  "  As 
I  was  quite  unable  to  decipher  thy  last  letter,  I  put  it  in 

22  Trans,  from  R.  W.  Garden,  Michelangelo,  a  Record  of  his  life  as  told 
by  his  letters,  p.  84. 

23  lb.  p.  63,  Rome  1509. 

24  Condivi,  Life  of  Michelangelo  Buonarroti,  §  XIV.  This  Fita  speaks 
from  a  close  intimacy  with  Michelangelo,  and  was  published  some  years 
before  he  died. 

25  Garden,  o.  c.  p.  168    (Letter  dated  Sept.  25,  1529). 
2c  See  letter  of  March,  1548,  o.  c.  p.  232. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  131 

the  fire."  ^^  He  was  comically  obstructive  touching  this 
nephew's  marriage,  objected,  for  example,  to  a  wife  who 
was  near-sighted;  altogether  he  was  fearful  of  the  ways 
of  women.  Besides  his  family,  Michelangelo  was  gen- 
erous and  affectionate  toward  Urbino,  his  trusted  servant. 
He  would  show  impulsive  love  for  those  he  liked,  whether 
or  not  they  were  worthy  of  his  regard.  His  praise  was 
apt  to  be  as  extreme  as  his  anger  or  irritation.  He  could 
debase  himself  before  mediocrity,  and  was  over-grateful 
to  Vasari,  who,  of  course,  worshipped  him.  Yet  he  can 
write  with  very  noble  modesty,  as  to  one  Martelli  who  had 
sent  him  a  sonnet  in  his  praise:  "  I  perceive  that  you 
have  imagined  me  to  be  as  God  wished  me  to  be.  I  am 
a  simple  man  and  of  little  worth,  spending  my  time  in 
striving  to  give  expression  to  the  art  God  gave  me."  ^^ 

Michelangelo  had  deep  affection  for  Sebastian  del 
Piombo,  and  praised  him  prodigiously,^^  as  well  he  might; 
but  he  ascribed  Raphael's  success  to  his  great  diligence. 
The  passionate  devotion  expressed  for  Tommaso  Cava- 
lieri,  a  cultivated  Roman  gentleman  of  great  personal 
beauty,  falls  in  the  same  category  with  the  love  for  Vic- 
toria Colonna,  soon  to  be  referred  to  in  connection  with 
the  sonnets. 

The  mention  of  these  paltry  incidents  of  character  is 
pardonable  if  they  prove  not  quite  irrelevant  to  the  self- 
expression  of  this  complete  and  prodigious  artist  person- 
ality. Michelangelo  adored  beauty,  and,  above  all,  the 
beauty  which  might  be  rendered  through  the  human  form, 
which  he  glorifies  in  his  painting  and  sculpture  as  Pindar 
glorified  it  in  his  Odes.  Not  altogether  painter,  but  alto- 
gether artist,  he  seems  to  us.  His  temperament,  his 
impulses  and  devotion,  his  imagination,  his  intellect  and 
faculty,  the  complete  efficient  nature  of  the  man,  drew 
the  whole  compass  of  his  life, —  knowledge,  opportunity, 
experience  and  incidental  passion, —  into  the  creation  of 
beauty  through  the  media  of  poetry,  sculpture,  painting, 

27  Garden,  o.  c.   p.  248    (1548). 

28  Garden,  o.  c.  p.  185    (Jan'y,  1542). 

29  Garden,  o.  c.  p.  154,  letter  of  May,  1525. 


132  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  architecture.  He  was  an  artist,  and  he  lived  no  other 
life,  save  casually,  distractedly,  impertinently,  under  the 
passing  jar  of  insignificant  irritations,  fears,  and  small 
infatuations. 

With  soft  human  spots  in  his  soul,  he  might  be  hungry 
for  affection,  or,  rather,  might  feel  the  need  of  feeling 
affection  and  expressing  it.  He  cast  his  pearls  before 
objects  worthy  or  unworthy.  His  need  was  to  cast  his 
pearl,  but  not  that  the  pearl  should  be  taken  into  some 
warm  and  sympathetic  bosom.  Such  an  artist's  love  is 
like  the  first  love  of  a  youth,  whose  need  is  to  love,  and 
feel  and  think  it  out  to  its  full  reaches,  imagine  its  rela- 
tions with  the  eternal  stars,  express  it  in  hidden  or  fear- 
fully revealed  adoration.  This  love  is  most  fortunate 
when  not  returned.  For  responsive  affection  from  the 
object  of  it  would  check  the  youth's  imagination,  and 
might  clog  the  expansion  of  his  nature  and  faculties. 

So  with  the  love  of  an  artist,  an  artist  in  his  whole  na- 
ture and  through  all  his  years,  like  Michelangelo.  The 
youthful  lover  Is  or  should  be  a  poet.  This  artist  was 
always  young,  loving  imaginatively,  seeking  to  clothe  his 
affection  In  beauty.  Michelangelo's  love,  as  we  find  it 
in  his  poems,  v/as  Petrarchlan,  expresslonal  and  creative. 
It  was  the  artist's  love  for  the  thing  of  beauty  which  he 
creates,  while  likewise  uplifting  to  the  spheres  his  concep- 
tion of  devotion  to  It.  Unwise  Pygmalion,  to  wish  to 
have  his  statue  come  to  life.  In  response  to  the  love  which 
had  created  it!  The  love  expressed  In  Michelangelo's 
sonnets  looked  for  no  more  return  than  did  the  ardor 
which  he  put  Into  his  painting  and  his  sculpture.  An 
equivalent  return  from  the  object  of  these  Impassioned 
expressions  would  have  perplexed  him;  he  could  not  have 
recognized  himself  as  a  fitting  altar  for  such  worship. 
He  might  even  have  been  In  a  predicament;  as  if  those 
creatures  of  his  brush  upon  the  SIstlne  ceiling,  or,  horror 
upon  horror,  those  In  the  Last  J^^clgment,  had  come  to 
life  and  were  thronging  to  clasp  the  knees  of  their  creator 
and  cover  him  with  their  Titanic  affection! 

We  may  not  err  In  finding  the  sonnets  of  Michelangelo 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  133 

and  the  passionately  sublime  thought  contained  In  them, 
to  be  sheer  art.  In  them  thought  and  Imagination  and 
emotion  fuse  and  press  with  energy  to  artistic  utterance; 
while  the  upper  reaches  of  human  passion  are  forced  along 
the  tortuosities  of  a  hyper-poetIc  Imagination.  Were  the 
sonnets  an  expression  of  a  real  passion?  Assuredly;  but 
It  was  a  passion  for  beauty,  perhaps  rather  for  the  ex- 
pression or  the  creation  of  beauty;  and  not  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  body  and  soul  of  another  human  being. 
They  were  the  self-expression  of  the  poet  who  composed 
them,  and  Incidentally  accepted  the  suggestions  of  certain 
actual  relationships  or  experiences.  The  suggestions 
sprang  from  actuality;  and  the  sonnets  In  which  they  were 
uplifted  and  finally  enshrined  were  as  true  as  art  could 
make  them.  Theirs  was  the  truth  of  valid  and  beautiful 
conceptions  set  In  fitting  words. 

As  befitted  a  sixteenth  century  Italian,  this  artist  was 
less  great  as  poet  than  as  painter  and  sculptor.  He 
seems  to  have  composed  verses  through  most  of  his  life, 
certainly  throughout  the  latter  portion  of  It.  He  did  not 
fling  them  off  casually  and  carelessly;  but  corrected  and 
rewrote  them,  and  permitted  a  collection  of  them  to  be 
made  for  circulation  among  chosen  spirits  who  could  un- 
derstand. The  latest  editor  of  these  diflicult  poems  ^^ 
believes  that  he  has  succeeded  In  printing  them  In  their 
proper  temporal  sequence;  though  often  he  has  felt  less 
certain  of  the  Individuals  to  whom  they  were  sent,  or  ad- 
dressed In  the  poet's  mind.  A  number  were  addressed  to 
a  man,  Cavallerl,^^  and  these  gave  rise  to  the  same  ques- 
tionings which  have  attached  to  some  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets.  In  both  cases  the  answers  He  in  the  poet's 
impulse  to  express  himself,  already  commented  on.  A 
more  Interesting  analogy  may  be  found  In  the  way  each  of 
these  poets  has  used  the  literary  conventions  in  the  air 

30  Die  Dichtungen  des  Michelagniolo  Buonarroti,  herausgegeben  etc.,  by 
Carl  Frey  (Berlin  1897).  The  first  critical  edition,  that  of  C.  Guasti, 
(Florence  1863),  contains  helpful  prose  renderings  of  the  contents  of  each 
poem.  J.  A.  Symonds's  translations  of  the  Sonnets  must  suffice  for  the 
English  reader.  They  are  not  always  the  equivalent  of  the  Italian;  but 
represent  a  brave  attempt  at  the  impossible. 

31  K.g'.  Sonnet  50   (Frey's  edition),  beginning  Se  nel  volto. 


134  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

about  him,  and  made  of  them  vehicles  for  his  own  power- 
ful and  significant  self-expression. 

From  the  affinities  of  his  own  nature,  Michelangelo 
revered  Dante  and  felt  the  power  of  Dante's  meaning. 
Occasionally  he  uses  the  metre  of  the  Commedia,  and  his 
verse  becomes  Dantesque  in  phrase.  But  Petrarch  af- 
forded the  chief  store  of  conventional  conceits  and  images. 
Michelangelo's  thought  also  reflects  the  current  Platon- 
Ism  of  the  Medici  circles,  as  well  as  the  sinuous  far  off 
rivulets  of  seeming  Platonism  which  had  percolated 
through  Italian  lyrics.  Whether  he  read  Plato  for  him- 
self has  been  much  disputed. 

A  number  of  these  sonnets  and  madrigals  are  Petrar- 
chian  in  sentiment  and  phrase.  The  query,  for  example, 
whether  the  beauty  seen  by  the  lover  in  his  mistress  is 
verily  in  her  or  In  his  own  soul,  is  an  echo  of  Petrarch 
as  well  as  Dante. ^^  But  all  such  apparently  borrowed 
notes  have  been  revitalized  In  Michelangelo's  deeply 
emotional  as  well  as  deeply  Intellectual  nature,  and  re- 
emerge  in  the  sonnets  as  elements  of  his  own  rending 
self-expression. 

Power,  rather  than  facility,  marks  the  work  of  Michel- 
angelo, whether  in  marble  or  pigment  or  in  verse.  There 
is  neither  ease  nor  clarity  in  his  sonnets.  One  feels  in 
them  first  the  difficulty  of  the  thought,  and  then  the  power 
which  compels  the  words  to  do  the  master's  utterance. 
No  other  sonnets,  Italian,  French  or  English,  evince  such 
strainings.  Yet  the  mind  breaks  through  and  conquers. 
And,  when  love  is  the  burden  of  the  sonnet,  though  the 
lines  may  not  keep  their  significance  sweetly  and  surely 
human,  love  is  the  more  sublimely  lifted  to  its  eternal  goal 
of  beauty;  and  the  love  of  beauty  in  mortal  form  unites 
with  the  love  of  the  beauty  and  goodness  of  God. 

Some  of  the  sonnets  move  with  the  feeling  of  an  indi- 
vidual or  reciprocal  situation.  Surely  those  do  which 
express  the  grieving  thought  of  Michelangelo  on  the 
death  of  Victoria  Colonna.  But  still  he  is  an  artist  and  a 
poet,  obeying  the  compulsions  of  his  conception  of  eternal 

22  No.  32  (Frey) — Dimmi  di  gratia.     See  Frey's  notes. 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  i35 

love  and  beauty.  The  personal  feeling  or  situation  of 
the  writer  seems  to  inspire  and  guide  the  poems  giving 
utterance  to  sorrow  and  contrition  over  the  caducity  and 
vain  waste  of  life,  when  at  the  end  the  soul  must  cast  itself 
on  the  piteous  saving  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Alas!  when  it 
knows  itself  near  death,  but  far  from  God!  — 

presso  a  morte  e  si  lontan  da  Dio.^^ 

Michelangelo  wrote  a  number  of  sonnets  and  frag- 
ments of  sonnets  having  this  theme  in  the  last  years  of 
his  life,  and  among  them  the  most  famous  of  all  his 
poems: 

Giunto  e  gia  '1  corso  della  vita  mia.  .  .  . 

Now  that  his  life  has  reached  the  port  where  account  of 
every  unhappy  or  good  deed  must  be  given,  alas  for  the 
life-long  passion,  the  affectuosa  fantasia,  which  has  made 
art  for  him  idoF  e  monarchal  Death  is  near  and  cer- 
tain, and  the  second  death,  the  everlasting,  menaces. 
Neither  painting  nor  carving  can  calm  the  soul  now  turned 
to  that  love  divine  which  to  receive  us  opens  his  arms 
upon  the  cross. ^* 

If  the  poems  of  Michelangelo  were  to  be  for  the 
world  the  least  important  exponent  of  his  genius,  they 
illuminate  the  passionate  tension  of  his  sculpture  and  his 
painting.  Also  they  show  the  manifold  completeness  of 
this  man  of  four  natures,  as  he  was  called,  or  of  four 
gifts  or  faculties,  which  unfolded  themselves  in  his  four 
arts  of  poetry,  sculpture,  painting  and  architecture. 
These  four  arts  were  the  expressions  of  his  nature  which 
was  one  in  its  manifold  striving  to  create  the  beauty  which 
It  yearned  to  realize.  The  poems  gave  their  harnessed 
utterance  to  the  same  endeavor  which  the  mightier  plastic 
genius  of  the  man  was  embodying  In  sculpture  and  paint- 
ing. St.  Peter's  dome  was  Its  last  realization.  Through 
all  his  arts,  though  in  architecture  least  articulately,  he 
sought  to  express  the  forms  of  visible  beauty.     Its  hlgh- 

33  No.  48  (Frey),  and  see  49. 
84^Jq.  147  (Frey). 


136  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

est  type  was  the  human  form,  the  veritable  human  body- 
stripped  of  obscuring  accessories  and  distractions. 

The  instincts  of  his  dynamic  nature  turned  to  the  mascu- 
line rather  than  the  feminine  form;  and  in  the  masculine 
achieved  its  grandest  triumphs:  the  Adam  of  the  Sistine 
ceiling  is  incomparably  more  beautiful  than  the  Eve: 
though  one  may  stand  astounded  before  the  feminine 
figure  of  Night  in  the  Medici  Chapel.  But  the  sheer 
decorative  idealized  athletic  figures  on  the  painted  beams 
of  the  Sistine  ceiling  are  all  male.  No  man  before  or 
since  ever  drew  forth  such  import  and  beauty  from  the 
trunk  and  limbs  of  man.  Yet  when  the  figure  and  situa- 
tion warranted,  he  gave  proportionate  emphasis  to  the 
human  visage,  as  the  crowning  and  most  complex  and  sub- 
tle feature  of  the  human  form. 

None  had  ever  shown  such  knowledge  of  the  human 
form;  and  no  man's  work  approached  such  miracles  of  ex- 
pressive tension  and  repose.  Michelangelo  studied  and 
followed  nature,  the  natural  body;  and  then  along  the 
principles  of  its  organic  structure  he  passed  beyond  his 
source,  surpassed  his  teacher.  He  is  the  grand  exponent 
of  Leonardo's  pregnant  words,  the  artist  disputes  and 
vies  with  nature,  that  his  work  may  present  further  beau- 
ties and  perfections  through  following  the  principles  and 
suggestions  of  the  natural  world. 

The  work  of  no  other  artist  has  ever  represented  such 
enormous  effort;  and  one  may  doubt  whether  the  work 
of  any  other  artist  has  surpassed  it  in  achievement.  The 
vocabularies  of  critics  have  been  drained  bare  in  describ- 
ing these  stupendous  creations  of  sculpture  and  painting, 
or  in  criticising  their  alleged  exaggerations  and  possibly 
baneful  effect  uDon  the  following  time.  The  effect  may  be 
condoned  for  the  sake  of  the  achievement!  There  is  no 
call  here  to  go  beyond  the  works  themselves  or  add  to  the 
discussion  of  them.  The  Picta,  the  Sistine  Ceiling,  those 
recumbent  demi-gods  of  pain  on  the  Medici  tombs,  the 
statues  in  the  niches  over  them,  the  Slaves  in  the  Louvre, 
the  Moses  in  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  are  exhaustless  in 
beauty  and  import.     They  are  like  the  Bible,  like  Shake- 


ITALIAN  PAINTING  i37 

speare,  like  the  Phldian  Parthenon  or  the  Cathedral  of 
Chartres.  Each  thoughtful  person  shall  appreciate  and 
draw  from  them  according  to  his  understanding;  and  a 
residue  will  still  be  there  !  They  were  the  self-expression 
of  a  daemonic  artist. 

It  seems  absurd  to  end  this  chapter  without  any  refer- 
ence to  Venetian  painting,  which  was  so  utterly  expressive 
of  the  whole  esthetic  soul  of  Venice.  The  Venetian  soul 
cast  itself  upon  painting  and  color.  Painting,  colored 
decoration,  was  their  art,  their  art  par  excellence,  almost 
their  sole  and  single  art.  Was  this  due  to  their  affinity 
with  the  Byzantine  East,  where  art  was  color  rather  than 
salient  modelling?  Was  it  due  to  their  own  atmosphere 
and  sea  and  sunset?  Who  knows?  The  fact  remained: 
Venice  was  all  for  painting.  Her  sculpture  was  insigni- 
ficant, her  poetry  a  blank. 

But  the  field  becomes  too  vast.  Venetian  painting  is 
better  to  look  at,  and  surrender  one's  self  to,  than  to  read 
and  write  about.  All  painting  is  primarily  to  be  seen; 
but  Venetian  painting  is  somewhat  more  altogether  to  be 
seen  rather  than  reflected  on.  Is  not  this  true  of  Titian? 
He  loved  the  naked  body  quite  as  dearly  as  did  Michel- 
angelo, and  painted  its  flesh,  its  feminine  color  far  more 
exquisitely.  But  Michelangelo's  bodies,  not  Titian's,  are 
meet  for  thought  and  reflection.  The  glories  of  the 
Venetian  master's  color  surpassed  all  the  coloring  of 
Florence  and  of  Rome;  while  the  blander  harmonies  of 
his  composition  equalled  Raphael's  achievement.  And 
he  was  a  grand  inaugurator  of  landscape  painting. 

And  what  like  things  might  be  said  of  his  master 
Giorgione?  And  of  Veronese?  And  what  more  like 
things,  and  other  things  besides,  of  that  last  Venetian 
Titan  of  a  painter,  Tintoretto,  who  seems  to  hurl  his 
compositions  on  the  canvas,  miracles  of  light  and  dark. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  too  much  to  write  about,  or  it  is  all 
better  to  be  seen. 


BOOK  II 
ERASMUS  AND  LUTHER 


CHAPTER  VI 

SCHOLARSHIP    IN    GERMANY    AND    THE    NETHERLANDS 

Whether  in  her  times  of  mental  squalor  or  her  times  of 
brilhancy,  Italy  was  reminiscent  of  her  past  and  sensitive 
to  its  influence.  Classic  literature  and  art  were  for  her 
an  expression  of  a  greater  pagan  manhood,  once  hers 
and  still  having  silent  part  in  whatever  her  people  might 
achieve.  It  was  natural  that  a  renewed  and  broader 
reading  of  the  Classics  and  a  more  facile  imitation  of  the 
ancient  buildings  and  the  ancient  sculptures  should  be  the 
chief  element  in  her  intellectual  and  catholic  progress  in 
the  fourteenth  and  following  centuries. 

But  the  Roman  past  was  not  the  source  of  all  intellec- 
tual elements  in  the  North.  The  northern  peoples  had 
their  own  potent  antecedents.  They  were  not  the  direct 
descendants  of  the  Romans,  but,  at  most,  spiritual  col- 
laterals with  other  strains  of  blood.  Their  past  had  been 
monastic  and  feudal,  rather  than  secular  and  urban. 
Monasticism  had  scant  sympathy  for  the  classics,  and  feu- 
dalism had  developed  a  taste  for  turbulent  epics  and 
adventurous  romance.  The  North  had  looked  on  the 
classics  as  a  store  of  knowledge;  and  northern  intellectual 
energies,  focussing  at  last  in  the  University  of  Paris,  de- 
voted themselves  to  a  most  unhumanistic  exploitation  of 
ancient  philosophy  in  scholasticism  and  mediaeval  science, 
false  or  true.  Christianity  itself  as  understood  and  de- 
veloped or  corrupted  in  the  North  had  but  loose  kinship 
with  the  Latin  paganism  which  underlay  the  religiousness 
of  Italy.  The  northern  religion  held  Celtic  and  Teutonic 
heathen  elements,  unhumanistic  and  unmalleable.  It 
proved  more  unyielding  to  the  influence  of  pagan  human- 
ism than  the  Christianity  of  Italy. 

Nevertheless,  the  Latin  language  and  the  great  works 
composed  in  it  had  been  the  vehicle  of  educational  disci- 

141 


142  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

pline  in  France  and  Germany  and  England.  And  in 
those  countries  as  well  as  in  Italy,  the  classics  offered 
human  wisdom  and  a  broad  consideration  of  life  to  who- 
ev^er  might  read  and  partially  understand  them. 

Accordingly  when,  under  suggestions  from  the  pas- 
sionate classical  revival  in  Italy,  the  peoples  of  the  north 
turned  to  the  classics  with  a  renewed  and  deeper  zeal, 
their  purpose  was  not  confined  to  improvement  in  educa- 
tion and  Latinity.  The  intentions  and  desires  of  the 
northern  humanists  were  as  broad  as  their  own  natures, 
and  their  natures  were  developing  with  the  study  of  this 
humanizing  literature.  Their  pursuits  were  an  expres- 
sion of  their  wish  for  a  more  humane,  a  more  rational 
and  reasonable,  treatment  of  life.  Clearly  the  growing 
interest  in  the  classics  and  the  broadening  of  the  purpose 
of  their  study  was  part  of  the  general  intellectual  and 
social  development,  and  a  moving  factor  in  the  same. 

The  whole  matter  is  illustrated  by  the  career  and  func- 
tion and  effect  of  the  northern  apostle  of  humanism  and 
reasonableness,  Desiderius  Erasmus.  Since  all  classes 
in  the  north  were  keenly  interested  in  their  religion,  the 
labors  of  Erasmus  were  naturally  directed  to  the  scholarly 
study  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  Church  Fathers  as 
well  as  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  pagan  classics. 
What  is  true  of  the  great  Erasmus  is  true  of  northern 
scholars  before  him  as  well  as  those  who  felt  his  influence. 
And  with  them,  as  with  their  leader,  classical  studies  were 
part  of  a  more  instructed  appreciation  of  what  was  ra- 
tional, and  of  what  was  irrational,  absurd  or  intolerable, 
not  merely  in  social  life  but  in  religious  doctrine  and  prac- 
tice. Humanism  became  an  early  factor  in  the  coming 
religious  revolution,  from  which  it  was  destined  later  to 
part  company  in  Germany  and  France  and  England. 

In  the  Low  Countries,  where  Erasmus  was  a  native, 
as  well  as  in  the  Germany  educationally  affiliated  with 
them,  there  had  been  educational  and  intellectual  prog- 
ress in  the  fourteenth  century.  Stimulus  usually  would 
come,  or  seem  to  come,  from  some  person  gifted  with 
energy,  vision,  or  initiative,  above  his  fellows,     Toward 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  143 

the  close  of  the  century  an  influence  making  for  the  diffu- 
sion of  a  better  education  sprang  from  Gerard  Groot, 
founder  of  the  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life  at  his  home 
city  of  Deventer,  in  the  northeastern  part  of  what  now  is 
Holland.  He  had  been  a  vigorous  preacher  against  the 
lusts  of  the  clergy;  and  it  was  a  simple  teaching  and 
preaching  fraternity  that  he  founded,  composed  of  men 
who  incHned  toward  evangelical  piety,  yet  were  obedient 
to  the  Church,  and  had  no  revolutionary  aims.  They 
were  not  bound  by  monastic  vows;  they  taught  the  poor 
gratis,  and  preached  in  the  vernacular,  urging  those  who 
could  not  read  Latin  to  read  the  Bible  in  their  own  tongue. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  advocated  frequent  reference  to 
the  original  texts  in  order  to  correct  errors  in  the  Vulgate. 
They  spoke  little  of  dogmas  in  their  sermons. 

One  senses  a  certain  freedom  of  the  spirit  among  these 
Brethren,  with  a  perception  of  the  religious  and  educa- 
tional elements  which  soon  were  to  be  recognized  as 
cardinal.  One  also  sees  in  them  a  tendency  toward  a 
purer  Gospel  faith,  and  an  effort  to  better  the  lives  of 
clergy  and  laity.  Groot  died  in  1384,  still  in  the  prime 
of  life.  Able  coadjutors  remained;  and  Deventer  be- 
came the  home  of  pious  and  sensible  education.  The 
Brethren  extended  their  labors,  and  opened  schools  at 
many  places  in  the  Low  Countries,  the  influence  of  which 
reached  the  neighboring  parts  of  Germany.  These 
schools  attracted  capable  teachers  and  pupils,  and  seemed 
to  develop  the  talents  both  of  those  who  taught  and  those 
who  studied  in  them.  The  numbers  were  great,  and  the 
list  of  names  is  impressive.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  born 
near  Cologne,  was  one  of  the  Brethren;  and  Nicholas  of 
Cusa,  whose  intellectual  power  was  unequalled  in  his 
time,  studied  at  Deventer. 

Rudolf  Agricola  touched  this  circle,  and  Hegius  was 
very  part  of  it.  The  former,  a  Frisian,  born  In  1442, 
studied  at  Deventer  and  Louvain,  and  then  spent  several 
years  in  Italy  completing  his  classical  equipment.  Re- 
turning to  Germany,  he  devoted  himself  to  translating 
the  old  German  chronicles  and  diffusing  a  knowledge  of 


144  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURV 

the  classics.  He  did  not  fail  in  Christian  piety,  and  held 
to  the  idea  that  all  learning  should  serve  the  Faith.  He 
died  in  1485. 

Of  about  the  same  age  as  Agricola  was  the  Westphalian 
Hegius,  who  chose  to  call  himself  his  pupil  and  became 
Deventer's  greatest  schoolmaster.  He  had  been  a  pupil 
with  the  Brethren,  and  in  middle  life  fixed  himself  at 
Deventer,  where  he  taught  from  1475  until  his  death  in 
1498.  A  man  of  unquestioned  piety,  he  was  also  a 
scholar  and  knew  Greek.  He  improved  the  methods  of 
teaching,  replaced  the  old  text  books  by  better  ones,  and 
made  a  study  of  the  classics  the  centre  of  his  curriculum. 
Pupils  came  to  him  from  near  and  far,  till  his  school 
numbered  above  two  thousand.  His  crown  of  praise  lay 
in  the  names  of  those  who  called  him  master.  Erasmus 
was  among  them. 

We  turn  from  the  Brethren  and  their  pupils  to  a  famous 
German  educator  who  in  no  way  belonged  to  them,  the 
Alsatian  Wimpheling.  Born  in  1450,  he  first  studied  at 
Freiburg,  where  the  old  Doctrinale  was  his  grammar. 
Next  at  Erfurt,  where  he  touched  the  new  humanism,  but 
only  to  be  drawn  back  to  Heidelberg,  whose  university 
was  still  threshing  the  old  scholastic  straw  and  little  else. 
Disgusted  with  the  Canon  Law,  to  which  he  had  been 
destined,  he  felt  various  currents  drawing  him  to  belles 
lettres  and  versemaking,  to  public  questions,  and  to  re- 
ligion, for  he  too  was  looking  for  salvation.  He  became 
a  bachelor  of  Theology  in  1483;  but  instead  of  following 
that  vocation,  turned  to  teaching  the  sadly  needed  hu- 
manities at  Heidelberg.  The  futility  of  the  dispute  as 
to  universals  became  with  him  a  favorite  topic  of  dis- 
course. Later  in  life,  he  went  to  Strassburg,  and  there 
rather  vainly  undertook  to  establish  better  schools.  He 
did  not  die  till  1528.  His  life  and  somewhat  confused 
labors  at  least  evince  serious  endeavors  for  a  better 
scheme  of  education,  for  the  diffusion  of  liberal  knowl- 
edge, and  a  reform  of  the  morals  of  the  clergy.  The 
writings  of  this  occasionally  bitter  disputant  were  effective 
and  popular.     They  laid  bare  the  absurdities  of  current 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  145 

ways  of  education,  and  presented  rational  methods  of 
teaching  the  ancient  languages,  and  training  the  intelli- 
gence and  character  of  pupils. 

The  lives  of  these  men  covered  the  period  of  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  or  more  specifically  speaking,  of  the  art 
of  casting  metal  type.  Wimpheling  said  truthfully  that 
the  Germans  could  so  justly  pride  themselves  over  no 
other  invention  of  the  mind.  From  the  year  1462,  when 
the  secret  process  was  divulged  at  Maintz,  presses  were 
established  rapidly  through  Germany,  and  in  Italy  and 
France.  Printing  was  hailed  as  a  portentous  event,  for 
good  or  evil.  It  was  indeed  the  main  title  of  the  Germans 
to  intellectual  fame.  They  might  respect  themselves  for 
the  improvement  of  their  education  and  their  progress  in 
classical  studies;  yet  so  far  there  was  small  matter  in  one 
or  the  other  to  attract  the  praise  or  attention  of  other 
peoples,  Italians,  French,  English  or  Lowlanders.  The 
historian  who  is  not  a  German  will  trace  without  enthusi- 
ism  the  advent  and  progress  of  the  new  waves  of  human- 
ism. "  Educators  of  Germany,"  arose,  a  title  given  to 
Rabanus  Maurus  in  the  ninth  century,  and  now  to  be 
shared  by  Wimpheling  with  the  younger  man,  Melanch- 
thon,  and  perhaps  others.  But  these  educators  of  Ger- 
many were  not  like  the  Italian  humanists,  educators  of  the 
world.  The  one  man  who  rightly  won  a  towering  fame 
was  not  a  German,  but  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam. 

The  classics  had  not  been  left  unread  in  mediaeval  Ger- 
many, but  the  taste  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies turned  to  a  scholastic  exploitation  of  Aristotelian 
logic  and  metaphysics,  with  some  incursions  into  the  an- 
tique field  of  physical  science.  The  renewed  interest  in 
the  classics,  appearing  here  and  there  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, usually  carried  a  lively  detestation  of  the  methods 
and  topics  of  scholasticism,  which  still  occupied  the  uni- 
versities. But  this  reaction  did  not  spring  from  any  such 
natural  disposition  toward  antique  humanism  as  marked 
the  Italian  mind.  There  had  been  no  substratum  of  an- 
tique civilization  in  Germany,  a  land  never  subjected  to 
the  transforming  discipline  of  the  imperial  Roman  order. 


146  THE  SiXTJEENTH  CENTURY 

The  German  past  had  been  that  of  Teutonic  barbarism, 
with  its  hard  heathen  rehgion.  Next,  Germany  became 
feudal  and  monastic,  still  unsuited  to  the  urban  antique  hu- 
manism. What  city  life  there  was  remained  dull  and 
uninstructed  far  into  the  fifteenth  century.  Moreover, 
although  the  Germans  showed  few  signs  of  becoming  a 
nation,  they  had  attained  a  stubborn  racial  character, 
which  would  hardly  yield  itself  to  alien  moulds.  They 
had,  to  be  sure,  been  ready  to  accept  literary  and  social 
fashions,  for  example  from  the  French  side  of  the  Rhine; 
but  they  had  sturdily  remained  Germans;  and  now  were 
to  prove  again  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  that 
they  could  take  up  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek  litera- 
ture, and  interest  themselves  in  the  Italian  humanism, 
without  imperilling  their  German  natures.  It  held  true 
as  a  corollary  that  they  would  use  the  new  knowledge  ac- 
cording to  their  own  convictions  and  abiding  interests. 
German  scholars  did  not  become  humanists  after  the 
Italian  fashion,  bent  solely  upon  absorbing  the  classics; 
but  rather  they  sought  to  apply  the  new  knowledge  to  the 
conditions  of  life  in  Germany  and  the  problems  of  the 
approaching  religious  upheaval.  Least  of  all,  did  Ger- 
man scholarship  attempt  an  artistic  or  creative  imitation 
of  the  classics,  as  the  Italians  did;  but  earnestly  studied  the 
Greek  and  Latin  languages  and  endeavored  to  obtain  a 
solid  understanding  of  their  literatures. 

Stimulus  and  suggestion  came  from  Italy.  For  exam- 
ple, the  chancellor  of  the  Emperor  Karl  IV,  Johann  von 
Neumarkt,  who  flourished  between  1350  and  1375,  drew 
an  inflated  inspiration  from  Petrarch.  In  the  next  gen- 
eration, another  German  thinks  Salutato  the  wonder  of 
scholars,  and  seeks  his  acquaintance  in  Florence.  Soon 
the  Emperor  Sigismund  was  to  feel  a  lively  interest  in  the 
literature,  the  history,  the  ruins  of  antiquity,  and  become 
a  patron  of  Italian  humanists.  Then  incitement  to  an- 
tique studies  came  from  Italy  in  the  person  of  Aeneas 
Silvius,  ardent  humanist,  clever  diplomat,  future  cardinal, 
and  at  last  Pope.^     He  did  his  best  to  infuse  a  love  of 

1  Aeneas  Silvius  Piccolomini  was  born  near  Sienna  in  1405.     He  went 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  147 

letters  into  these  northern  swine,  as  he  deemed  them; 
but  the  result  fell  short  of  his  wishes.  His  race  and  per- 
sonality roused  distrust  In  the  German  bosom.  We  see 
the  antipathy  toward  him  concentrate  in  Gregor  Heim- 
burg,  jurist  and  statesman,  and  most  emphatic  German, 
whom  Aeneas  by  no  blandishment  could  win  either  to  his 
policy  or  his  friendship.  This  able  speaker  professed  to 
despise  the  artifices  of  rhetoric  and  all  Itallanate  imitation 
of  the  ancients. 

Study  of  the  classics  did  not  shake  the  piety  of  German 
students  in  the  fifteenth  century,  whose  names  and  par- 
ticular accomplishments  need  not  be  catalogued.  An 
earlier  generation  was  succeeded  by  those  born  in  decades 
when  the  German  people  were  entering  a  period  of  re- 
ligious and  political  conflict.  These  younger  men  were 
affected  by  the  controversies  of  the  time,  and  some  of 
them  caught  by  its  whirlwinds.  Naturally  they  used 
their  faculties  and  inclined  the  fruit  of  their  studies  to 
timely  ends. 

One  may  make  one^s  approach  to  the  years  of  larger 
conflict  through  the  achievements  and  troubles  of  the  most 
distinguished  German  scholar  of  his  time,  Johann  Reuch- 
lin.2  Born  in  Pforzheim,  the  gate  of  the  Black  Forest, 
in  1455,  he  studied  for  a  while  at  Freiburg,  and  then 
made  his  way  to  Paris,  where  he  learned  some  Greek. 
He  went  next  to  Basel  and  then  to  Paris  again,  to  learn 
more  Greek.  But  having  chosen  jurisprudence  as  his 
profession,  he  turned  his  steps  to  Orleans.  He  had  be- 
come a  teacher  now,  of  Latin  and  Greek,  and  as  such  went 
to  Tubingen  at  the  close  of  the  year  148 1.  There  the 
patronage  of  the  great  came  upon  him,  and  within  a  few 
months  he  was  taken  to  Italy  by  the  Count  of  Wiirtem- 
berg.  So  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Italian  humanists, 
and  impressed  them  with  his  Greek.  It  was,  however, 
on  a  later  Italian  journey  that  he  met  Pico  della  Miran- 

to  the  Council  of  Basel  in  1432;  and  afterwards  was  much  at  Vienna  and 
elsewhere  in   Germany,     He  became  Pope   Pius   II   in   1458,   and   died   in 
1464. 
2  See  L.  Geiger,  Johann  Reuchlin,  (Leipsic  1871). 


148  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

dola.  This  may  have  inspired  him  to  take  up  the  study  of 
Hebrew  and  the  Cabbala,  as  he  did  under  the  guidance 
of  learned  Jews.  Reuchlin  moved  with  people  of  station : 
as  a  man,  as  a  publicist,  as  a  scholar,  he  was  honored  by 
all.  The  list  of  his  writings  opens  with  a  brief  Latin 
Dictionary,  produced  at  the  age  of  twenty.  In  course  of 
time,  he  wrote  Latin  verses  and  comedies,  some  of  the 
last  apparently  in  imitation  of  a  French  model.  He 
made  Latin  translations  from  the  Greek;  Homer's  Battle 
of  the  Frogs  and  Mice  and  some  treatises  of  Athanasius 
were  among  them,  and  denote  his  range. 

All  this  was  respectable.  But  Reuchlln's  service  to 
scholarship  was  his  work  in  Hebrew.  His  Rudamenta 
hehraica  laid  the  foundations  of  its  study  among  the 
Germans.  He  did  not  stop,  however,  with  scholarly  and 
unquestionably  meritorious  work  upon  the  languages;  but 
chose  to  follow  the  venturesome  Pico  Into  the  caves  of  the 
Cabbala,  which  held  nostrums  of  blessedness  not  found  so 
clearly  In  the  Old  Testament.  Like  Pico  he  took  from 
It  according  to  his  taste.  Rejecting  Its  sorcery  and  as- 
trology, he  made  his  own  Its  equally  wonderful  wisdom, 
which  linked  man  with  his  beatitude.  The  "  wonder 
working  word  "  he  made  the  title  of  his  book,  De  Veiho 
mirifico.  This  was  followed  by  further  seductive  expo- 
sition In  his  Z)^  y^r/^  Cabalistica;  which  appeared  In  15 17, 
when  Luther  was  already  holding  forth  other  matters ! 

Troubles  fell  on  Reuchlin.  The  Vulgate  was  the  au- 
thoritative sacred  vehicle  of  truth;  and  to  many  church- 
men Hebrew  and  Greek  scholarship,  with  Its  appeal  to 
the  original  texts,  was  irritating  and  disturbing.  So 
Erasmus  learned  when  he  had  edited  the  Greek  New 
Testament,  and  so  Reuchlin  might  learn  from  the  fortunes 
of  his  Hebrew  grammar.  Some  people  likewise  looked 
askance  on  his  ponderous  flirtation  with  the  Cabbala. 
Such  were  the  suspect  fringes  of  his  great  repute,  when 
partly  through  the  force  of  circumstances,  and  partly 
through  his  self-respect,  he  became  the  centre  of  a  strug- 
gle for  the  freedom  of  scholarship.  A  preposterous  con- 
verted Jew  named  Pfeffercorn,  with  malignant  eagerness 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  i49 

to  convert  his  stiffnecked  people,  obtained  a  decree  from 
the  Emperor  Maximilian  authorizing  him  to  find  and  de- 
stroy those  Jewish  books  which  were  hostile  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  He  was  supported  by  the  Dominicans  of  the 
Cologne  university.  A  bitter  and  most  elaborate  and 
comphcated  controversy  followed.  The  universities  gave 
their  opinions.  Reuchlin  was  drawn  in,  and  showed  him- 
self the  champion  of  the  Jewish  books;  for  he  held  the 
cause  of  scholarship,  as  well  as  true  religion,  to  be  in- 
volved. The  Dominicans  brought  charges  of  heresy 
against  him  and  his  writings.  The  cause,  tried  once  and 
again  in  Germany,  was  decided  there  in  Reuchlin's  favor; 
and  the  Dominicans  appealed  to  Rome,  where,  after 
years,  a  halting  decision  was  rendered.  That  did  not  end 
it.  The  matter  was  still  fought  out  in  Germany,  and  even 
in  other  lands.  The  scholar  humanists  were  Reuchlin's 
partisans,  with  many  a  good  reactionary  on  the  other  side. 
A  few  years  before  Reuchlin's  death,  his  grandnephew 
Philip  Melanchthon,  a  prodigy  of  precocious  scholarship, 
was  called  to  Wittenberg,  and  the  great  uncle  sent  him 
with  his  blessing.  The  Lutheran  revolt  was  already  mov- 
ing briskly  with  great  noise.  The  venerable  Reuchlin, 
like  many  another  humanist  of  his  generation,  drew  back 
from  it  and  died  within  the  bosom  of  the  church. 

If  Reuchlin's  cause  was  won,  it  was  won  by  wit  and 
laughter,  quite  as  much  as  by  more  solemn  means.  Wit's 
best  contribution  to  the  fray  was  from  the  humanists  of 
Erfurt,  aided  by  the  redoubtable  Ulrich  von  Hutten.  It 
was  a  vicious  kind  of  confetti,  these  Epistolae  Ohscuro- 
rum  Firorum,  written  in  the  funniest  hog-Latin.  The 
fun  carries  sheer  across  the  centuries,  and  stirs  to  laughter 
yet.  The  Cologne  Dominicans  could  never  pick  these 
burrs  out  of  their  hides. ^ 

A  leader  of  the  Erfurt  humanists  was  one  Konrad  Mut, 
called  Mutianus  Rufus,  or,  less  euphoniously,  the  red- 
haired.  Though  not  shown  to  have  contributed  to  the 
Letters   of   the   Obscure,   he   wrote   many   of   his   own, 

3  There  is  an  admirable  edition  of  the  Epistolae  Obscurorum  Firorum, 
with  introduction  and  English  translation  by  F.  G.  Stokes  (London  1909)' 


150  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tRrough  which  he  remains  noticeable,  If  not  notable.  He 
win  answer  for  a  closing  example  of  the  German  humanist 
of  Erasmus's  generation. 

Born  at  Homberg  In  147 1,  he  too  studied  under  Hegius 
at  Deventer.  He  came  to  Erfurt  In  i486  and  Is  found 
teaching  there  In  1492.  Three  years  later  he  set  out  for 
Italy,  travelled  through  Its  cities  and  listened  to  the  hu- 
manists, Pico  and  Ficino  among  others.  He  did  not  re- 
turn to  Germany  till  1502.  He  tried  official  life,  aban- 
doned it,  and  built  himself  a  little  house  In  Gotha,  near 
the  Cathedral.  Inscribing  Beata  Tranqtiillitas  upon  the 
door  in  golden  letters,  he  settled  himself  within,  and  lived 
there  till  his  death  in  1526. 

Mutlanus  was  a  cultivated  man,  devoted  to  carrying 
out  his  tastes.  The  classics  were  his  chief  love,  as  schol- 
asticism, according  to  the  humanistic  convention,  was  his 
abomination.  He  had  a  good  knowledge  of  the  Civil 
Law,  and  held,  with  the  new  school  of  jurists,  that  one 
should  study  the  Corpus  Juris  itself,  and  not  the  commen- 
tators. He  was  not  unread  in  medicine  and  Pliny;  had  a 
mild  belief  in  astrology,  but  rejected  magic. 

Naturally  he  was  a  partisan  of  Reuchlln.  But  Eras- 
mus was  his  idol,  in  scholarship  and  In  attitude  toward 
life.  He  saw  in  him  the  restorer  of  theology  and  the 
font  from  which  CEcolampadlus,  Luther,  and  Melanch- 
thon  drew.^  This  was  the  view  of  many.  As  a  fol- 
lower of  Erasmus,  Mutlanus  took  a  rational  or  rational- 
istic view  of  religion,  going  a  little  further  than  his  model, 
or  at  all  events  expressing  thoughts  which  Erasmus  would 
have  disavowed.  Indeed  he  strikes  us  as  one  of  those 
paganlzers  whom  Erasmus  disapproved  in  his  Ciceroni- 
anus.^  One  God  or  Goddess,  Natura,  he  would  adore 
under  many  names  or  manifestations  —  nomina  or 
numina.  They  included  the  old  Pantheon,  to  which 
Moses  and  Christ  should  be  added.  "  When  I  say  Jupi- 
ter, I  mean  Christ  and  the  true  God."     Of  course,  Mutl- 

*  As  in  Epistle  to  Lang,  (1520)  printed  p.  641  of  C.  Krause,  Briefwechsel 
des  Mutlanus  Rufus  (Kassel,  1885)  :  with  a  full  introduction. 
5  See  post,  chap.  VII. 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  151 

anus  finds  a  Christianity  before  Christ,  whose  humanity 
he  regarded  merely  as  a  semblance.  "  The  true  Christ  is 
soul  and  spirit,  not  to  be  handled  with  the  hands."  So  he 
interpreted  Christianity  loosely  and  easily,  discarding, 
lor  example,  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  His  wit 
hovered  on  the  edge  of  irreverence. 

This  man  of  scholarly  habit,  who  disliked  tumult  as 
much  as  Erasmus  did,  drew  back  from  Luther,  of  whom 
at  first  he  approved.  He  preferred  books  and  a  rational 
life;  and  like  Erasmus,  he  found  himself  rather  solitary 
in  his  closing  years,  having  declined  the  conflict  in  which 
his  countrymen  were  engaged.  Yet  he  held  himself  a 
good  German,  read  books  in  his  native  tongue  and  pro- 
fessed a  high  regard  for  at  least  the  possibilities  of  Ger- 
man culture. 

So  we  are  brought  back  to  the  fact  that  the  German 
humanists  were  emphatically  Germans;  they  held  them- 
selves as  German  patriots,  and  evinced  not  Infrequently 
an  active  interest  in  the  history  and  literature  of  Germany. 
Kaiser  Max  set  the  fashion,  and  German  princes  Imitated 
his  patronage  of  studies,  which  threw  light  on  the  German 
past  and  enhanced  the  Fatherland's  repute.  Here  hu- 
manist patricians,  leaders  In  their  cities,  like  Wlllbald 
Pirckheimer  of  Nuremberg  or  Conrad  Peutinger  of  Augs- 
burg, vied  with  scholars  of  private  station,  like  Celtis  or 
Beatus  Rhenanus.  Or  one  may  name  Trithemlus,  abbot 
of  Sponheim  near  Kreuznach,  reformer  of  his  Order,  and 
founder  of  something  like  a  learned  Academy.  He  was 
perhaps  the  first  to  outline  a  history  of  German  literature. 
A  different  and  more  tempestuous  German  patriot  will  be 
found  in  Ulrlch  von  Hutten,  who  will  cry  aloud  for  men- 
tion when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  German  hatred  of  the 
Italian  papacy. 

Before  leaving  Germany  proper,  one  notes  the  hostility 
of  Cologne  and  other  universities  to  the  newer  better 
learning.  This  fact  was  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Ger- 
many. The  hostility  of  the  established  ifaculties  at  Lou- 
vain  will  drive  Erasmus  to  abandon  his  attempt  to  estab- 
lish there  a  college  for  the  study  of  Greek,  Hebrew  and 


152  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Latin.  In  France,  the  attitude  of  the  Sorbonne,  that  is, 
the  theological  faculty  of  the  University  of  Paris,  was 
even  more  malignantly  reactionary.  As  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury passes  into  the  sixteenth,  the  Sorbonne  became  sus- 
picious of  the  slightest  change  in  institution  or  opinion, 
and  was  quick  to  crush  any  attempt  for  the  reform  of 
education  or  the  advancement  of  learning.  Rightly  they 
felt  that  light  from  any  side  might  imperil  their  position. 
Many  a  French  scholar  sought  a  freer  air  in  the  large 
provincial  cities  like  Lyons,  or  found  it  at  the  court  of 
Margaret  of  Navarre.^  Likewise  in  Germany  learning 
was  cultivated  by  individual  scholars  apart  from  uni- 
versities, or  in  liberal  minded  circles  in  the  great  com- 
mercial cities  of  Strassburg,  Augsburg  or  Nuremberg. 
The  routes  of  commerce  brought  the  good  things  of  the 
spirit  too,  and  the  wealth  of  the  leading  burghers  was 
turned  to  the  patronage  of  art  and  letters. 

Looking  now  more  particularly  to  the  Netherlands, 
one  notes  the  general  establishment  of  printing  presses 
between  the  years  1473  and  149 1.  As  in  Germany  so  in 
the  Netherlands,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  new  humanism,  was  facilitated  and  en- 
couraged through  the  new  art  of  printing.  Deventer  was 
among  the  first  to  have  its  press  ( 1476) .  And  with  De- 
venter  and  the  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  one  recalls 
that  the  currents  of  school  education  overran  political 
boundaries. 

Yet  there  was  a  difference  between  German  and  Nether- 
land  scholars,  and  between  the  purposes  to  which  they 
applied  their  culture.  The  Germans,  as  remarked,  were 
enthusiastic,  sometimes  rampant,  Germans;  the  scholars 
of  the  Low  Countries  had  no  corresponding  passion. 
Theirs  was  not  a  great  self-conscious  country,  feeling  its 
racehood  perhaps  the  more  acutely  through  despair  of 
political  union.  The  Netherlands  had  no  such  hope. 
This  little  country  had  been  a  battle  ground  for  rival 
potentates  whose   homes   were   elsewhere;   politically  it 

«  See  post,  chaps.  XII  and  XVI. 


NORTHERN  SCHOLARSHIP  153 

seemed  doomed  to  be  an  appanage  of  Burgundy,  of  Aus- 
tria, of  Spain.  It  had  no  national  tongue;  but  hung  di- 
vided between  Dutch,  Flemish  and  French.  Territorial 
pride  and  intellectual  energy  did  not  unite  in  the  creation 
of  a  national  literature.  The  country  was  too  small;  its 
people  too  few.  It  was  a  highway  of  commerce  and 
ideas;  the  people  had  industrial  and  commercial  aptitude; 
their  cities  were  as  factories  and  marts,  open  to  the  traffic 
of  the  world.  Thought  and  scholarship  were  not  im- 
pressed with  local  aims  or  national  ambitions,  nor  pro- 
vincialized through  patriotism.  Till  persecution  came, 
there  was  nothing  to  prevent  acceptance  of  whatever 
might  present  universal  human  interest  and  validity.'^ 

It  may  be  remarked  that  an  advance  in  sacred  studies 
usually  accompanied  the  progress  of  classical  scholarship. 
There  were  efforts  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  reach  a  closer 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures  than  could  be  had  from 
the  Vulgate,  which  a  few  scholars  dared  to  say  was 
sometimes  faulty  in  its  renderings.  To  this  end  at  Cam- 
bridge in  the  thirteenth  century,  Robert  Grosseteste  and 
Roger  Bacon  planned  and  labored  to  revive  a  knowledge 
of  Hebrew  and  of  Greek.^  The  result  of  their  labors  did 
not  perish,  but  continued,  trickling  in  hidden  currents, 
which  now  and  then  rose  to  the  surface  in  the  work  of 
some  man  we  know.  Such  a  one  was  Nicholas  of  Lyra 
in  the  diocese  of  Evreux,  where  he  was  born  toward  the 
close  of  the  thirteenth  century.  He  became  a  Franciscan 
monk,  and  died  about  the  middle  of  the  next  century. 
Lie  acquired  a  considerable  knowledge  of  both  Greek  and 
Hebrew  and  was  a  good  Biblical  scholar,  writing  brief 
commentaries  upon  the  Scriptures,  and  a  much  needed 
work  distinguishing  the  canonical  from  the  Apocryphal 
books.  As  a  commentator  his  chief  and  rather  individual 
merit  was  that  he  tried  to  ascertain  the  actual  meaning  of 
the  text,  and  did  not  abandon  himself  to  the  conventional 
allegorical  Interpretations.^ 

'^  Cf .  H.  Pirenne,  Histoire  de  Belgique,  t.  III.  pp.  285  sqq.  (1907). 

s  See  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  chap.  XXXI. 

^  See  Altraeyer,  Les  Precurseurs  de  la  Refortne  aux  Pays-Bos,  vol.  Iw 


154  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

In  Italy  the  fifteenth  century  brought  a  reviving  inter- 
est in  Christian  letters,  especially  In  the  works  of  the  great 
fourth  and  fifth  century  doctors.  Even  earlier  Christian 
writings  occasionally  appear  in  the  large  libraries,  as  that 
of  Pope  Nicholas  V.  (1447-55)  and  that  of  Niccolo 
Niccoli,  the  Florentine,  who  died  in  I437-  Christian 
letters  owed  much  to  the  labors  of  Niccolo's  friend, 
Ambrogio  Traversari,  both  as  a  collector  of  manuscripts, 
and  as  a  painful  translator  from  the  Greek.^^  Lorenzo 
Valla,  most  critical  of  Italian  scholars,  exposer  of  the  for- 
gery of  the  "  Donation  of  Constantlne,"  was  a  younger 
contemporary  of  these  men.  In  the  next  generation 
comes  the  Florentine,  FIcIno,  who  lectured  upon  Paul  as 
well  as  Plato,  and  whose  influence  may  have  suggested 
the  famous  lectures  which  were  given  at  Oxford  about 
the  year  1500  by  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  a  liberal  and 
intelligent  Christian  scholar,  a  friend  of  Thomas  More 
and  Erasmus.  All  three  were  bent  upon  applying  the 
resources  of  the  new  scholarship  to  the  interpretation  of 
Christian  documents,  and  their  best  Intelligence  to  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  faith.  Their  friends  and  admirers, 
especially  those  of  Erasmus,  w^ere  so  great  in  number  and 
so  conspicuous  in  attainments  and  influence,  as  to  consti- 
tute a  party  In  favor  of  a  rational  and  considerably  re- 
formed Catholic  religion.  Colet  and  More  will  come  be- 
fore us  hereafter.  We  turn  now  to  Erasmus  who  pre- 
sents the  culmination  of  this  revival  of  Christian  scholar- 
ship in  the  North,  and  a  good  deal  besides. 

pp.  99-101   (The  Hague,  i886).     I  wish  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  the 
admirable  chapter  entitled  "  The  Christian  Renaissance  "  by  M,  R.  James, 
in  vol.  I.  of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History.     Cf.  also  P.  Wernle,  Die 
Renaissance  des  Christentums  im  i6.  Jahrhundert  (1904). 
10  Cf.  ante  chap.  11. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DESIDERIUS    ERASMUS,   THE   NORTHERN  APOSTLE   OF 
LETTERS    AND    REASONABLENESS 

Erasmus  was  the  most  influential  man  of  letters  of  his 
time  and  the  most  catholic  in  the  scope  of  his  pursuits. 
He  was  the  universal  humanist,  not  merely  following  the 
profession  of  humane  letters  but  inculcating  their  lessons 
of  reasonableness  in  his  writings  and  his  life.  And  as 
he  exemplified  the  northern  tendency  toward  erudition  and 
at  the  same  time  cultivated  the  elegances  of  composition 
as  aptly  as  any  Italian,  he  combined  the  intellectual  char- 
acteristics noticeable  on  opposite  sides  of  the  Alps. 

He  happened  to  be  born  in  Holland,^  which  was  one 
reason  why  he  was  an  unattached  citizen  of  the  world  — 
the  world  of  letters.  Many  of  his  later  years  were  passed 
at  Basel,  where  he  died  in  1536.  Basel  was  a  chief  city 
in  a  small  country  divided  in  race  and  language,  religion 
and  politics.  Erasmus  was  attracted  by  the  absence  of 
national  obsessions,  as  well  as  by  the  facilities  afforded 
there  for  the  printing  of  his  books.  But  he  felt  at  home 
wherever  he  was  comfortable,  had  the  food  and  wine 
which  suited  him,  found  congenial  friends,  was  let  alone 
to  work,  and  left  unmolested  by  religious  strife.  Of  un- 
certain health  and  delicate  physique,  he  required  a  con- 
siderable income  for  his  comfort;  and  was  importunate 
and  industrious  in  obtaining  it.  He  insisted  upon  free- 
dom of  movement  and  occupation;  ties  and  obligations, 

1  The  year  was  1466.  The  facts  of  Erasmus's  life  as  far  as  known,  and 
a  little  further,  may  be  left  to  the  numerous  biographies,  and  introductions 
to  his  various  works.  P,  S.  Allen's  Age  of  Erasmus  is  a  summary  by  one 
whose  knowledge  of  Erasmus's  life  and  letters  is  unequalled.  Several 
volumes  of  Allen's  edition  of  the  letters  have  appeared.  I  should  also 
refer  to  F.  M.  Nichol's  Epistles  of  Erasmus,  2  vols,  in  translations  (Long- 
mans 1901)  and  E.  Emerton's  Life  of  Erasmus,  (New  York,  Putnams, 
1899). 

155 


156  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

such  as  regular  teaching  at  a  university,  were  intolerable 
to  him.  He  belonged  to  no  country,  was  untouched  by 
national  prejudices,  hates,  or  aspirations,  social,  political, 
or  religious.  Void  of  racial  sympathy  and  antipathy,  de- 
testing partisanship,  except  that  making  for  intellectual 
enlightenment,  he  would  link  himself  to  no  revolutionary 
movement  nor  to  the  reactionary  powxrs  seeking  to  sup- 
press it.  The  one  or  the  other  might  imperil  the  advance 
of  letters  and  true  piety.  Reckoning  wrongly  with  the 
power,  even  the  power  of  advance,  which  lies  in  passion- 
ate rejection,  he  held  to  the  futile  hope  of  purifying  and 
rationalizing  Catholicism,  without  breaking  its  unity. 
Yet  his  efforts  to  Incorporate  in  religion  the  spirit  and 
certified  results  of  the  best  scholarship,  bore  fruit.  Of 
course  he  did  not  realize  that  the  will  to  remake  the 
Church  represented  the  most  intense  phase  of  the  north- 
ern desire  for  truth,  a  desire  heated  by  antagonism  to 
Rome  and  empassioned  with  yearning  for  unmediated 
union  with  the  saving  grace  of  God. 

The  moving  sincerities  of  Erasmus,  and  the  motives 
of  his  conduct,  appear  in  the  very  things  in  which  he 
was  thought  a  dissembler.  His  was  a  rational  and  pene- 
trating intelligence;  a  strong  and  educated  common 
sense.  He  had  the  gift  of  seeing  the  point,  the  veritable 
principle :  for  example,  that  virtue  lies  in  good  intent  and 
corresponding  conduct,  and  not  in  the  letter  of  the  in- 
different and  superstitious  observance.  He  saw  the  lack 
of  essential  connection  between  such  observance  and 
spiritual  betterment.  If  this  had  been  perceived  by  men 
before  him,  from  the  time  when  Isaiah  reported  that 
Jehovah  would  have  righteousness  and  not  sacrifice, 
nevertheless  Erasmus  saw  for  himself,  with  a  renewed 
and  timely  Insight,  the  silliness  and  brutishness  of  the 
current  religious  and  social  life.  He  would  apply  an  in- 
formed Intelligence  to  the  improvement  of  education,  the 
betterment  of  society,  the  purification  of  religion.  As  the 
fanatic  Impulse  was  not  his,  he  had  no  wish  to  destroy 
whatever  might  be  harmlessly  retained  In  the  established 
order  of  religion,  government,  or  daily  living.     Enllght- 


ERASMUS  157 

enment  based  on  scholarship  was  his  aim  for  himself  and 
for  society.  In  religion,  as  In  secular  culture,  this  pious, 
but  not  extravagantly  religious,  man  loved  the  truth  that 
was  definite  and  tangible,  and  had  no  taste  for  the  mystic 
or  metaphysical.  The  ethical  element  appealed  to  him 
more  than  the  theological.  He  wished  to  establish  and 
publish  the  most  authentic  Christian  record,  which  for  him 
set  forth  the  surest  religious  truth.  Hence  he  spent  a 
good  part  of  his  life  and  strength  In  editing  the  texts  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  the  accredited  Fathers  of  the  Church. 

At  the  same  time  Erasmus  was  always  a  wit,  a  litter- 
ateur, a  professional  author  of  prodigious  facility  and  ar- 
tistic temperament.  He  was  drawn  to  the  artistically 
admirable  in  life  as  well  as  literature.  He  could  not 
complacently  endure  physical  discomforts,  or  the  incon- 
gruous or  disagreeable  in  his  relations  with  other  men. 
With  him  the  pressing  trouble  was  apt  to  give  shape  and 
color  to  a  situation,  which  he  might  then  set  forth  plausi- 
bly and  even  self-deceptlvely,  so  as  to  accredit  himself, 
dispel  his  annoyance,  or  present  a  means  of  escape.  Not 
infrequently  he  sees  his  relations  to  other  men  as  he  would 
have  them,  and  as  he  thought  they  should  be.  His  sup- 
ple epistolary  faculty  lent  itself  to  the  subconscious,  or 
sometimes  conscious,  manipulation  of  fact.  Just  as  in 
his  youth  he  had  been  addicted  to  the  over-expression  of 
friendship;  which  is  one  way  of  Idealizing  actual  relation- 
ships and  apprehending  them  as  they  should  preciously  be, 
but  not  quite  as  they  are,  and  certainly  not  as  they  endure. 

This  scholar-artist  passed  three  years  in  Italy  when 
Leonardo,  Michelangelo,  and  Raphael  were  at  their 
zenith;  his  own  portrait  was  painted  many  times  by  the 
greatest  of  German  painters.  He  was  himself  an  ob- 
server of  moeurs.  Yet  as  with  many  supremely  bookish 
people,  his  writings  show  small  interest  in  art  outside  of 
literature.  Even  In  literature,  he  had  little  taste  for 
poetry.  He  was  not  gifted  with  the  emotionally  impelled 
imagination  of  the  poetic  faculty.  His  Imagination  was 
entirely  rational.  Even  in  religion  he  apprehended  ra- 
tionally,  not  with   quick  intuitions;   and   entertained  no 


158  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

feelings,  experiences,  convictions,  which  he  could  not  ra- 
tionally explain  and  justify. 

There  is  no  need  to  worry  because  the  letters  of  Eras- 
mus show  flaws  of  character,  shared  with  many  other 
humanists:  readiness  to  flatter  for  money,  querulous 
fault-finding,  a  tendency  to  abuse  those  w^hom  he  had  un- 
successfully adulated.  Why  insist  upon  staunchness  of 
character  in  a  man  of  letters,  who  is  a  lover  of  learning 
and  rational  enlightenment,  and  a  sincere  commender  of 
sensible  and  pious  conduct?  Erasmus's  strength  lay  in 
the  genius  which  responded  to  these  desires,  and  boldly 
enough  displayed  itself  in  the  witty  and  purposeful 
presentation  of  the  ridiculous  and  the  rational,  the  de- 
graded and  the  intelligent,  and  from  a  Hke  point  of  view, 
the  evil  and  the  good.  There  was  enough  strength  of 
character  in  his  will,  which  kept  him  free  to  pursue  his 
scholar-quest  of  knowledge,  even  truth,  and  through  a 
long  life,  set  it  forth  in  books. 

One  may  say  that  the  central  purpose  of  the  life  and 
labors  of  Erasmus  was  to  get  an  education,  and  enable 
others  to  obtain  one.  To  this  end,  the  first  step,  taken  or 
forced  upon  him  in  his  youth,  was  an  acquaintance  with 
the  current  methods  and  knowledge  included  in  the  cur- 
riculum of  elementary  and  university  teaching.  He  ab- 
sorbed this  discipline  with  a  conscious  acceptance  of  some 
of  its  principles,  and  an  irritated  rejection  of  others. 
Those  processes  of  acceptance  and  rejection  included  re- 
ligious as  well  as  secular  education.  They  extended 
through  Erasmus's  long  apprentice  years,  and,  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  never  were  concluded.  On  such  founda- 
tions he  built  the  higher  stages  of  his  education,  which 
led  on  through  improving  the  educational  apparatus  of 
his  early  years,  through  acquiring  further  knowledge,  and 
through  presenting  with  novel  insight  whatever  he  had 
learned. 

Judged  by  Erasmus's  standards,  the  schools  of  the  clos- 
ing fifteenth  century  were  backward  in  methods  and  text- 
books.    The  barbarous  Graecismus  of  the  twelfth  cen- 


ERASMUS  159 

tury  was  dictated  to  Erasmus  at  Deventer.  A  rather 
better  grammar,  likewise  metrical,  the  Doctrinale  of 
Alexander  de  VUle-DIeu,  was  still  In  universal  use.  The 
scholarly  bent  of  the  masters  of  Deventer  seems  not  to 
have  affected  the  routine  of  the  school.  Erasmus  studied 
under  them  from  his  eleventh  to  his  eighteenth  year.  He 
next  spent  two  years  at  the  school  of  the  Brethren  of  the 
Common  Life  at  Bois-le-Duc;  and  then,  impelled  by  cir- 
cumstances, he  entered  as  a  novice  the  house  of  the  Augus- 
tinlan  canons  at  Stein,  near  Gouda,  where  he  remained 
for  seven  or  eight  years,  and  took  the  vows.  Later,  he 
inveighed  against  the  barbarous  and  monkish  education 
of  this  period  of  his  life.  Yet  at  Stein  he  studied  the 
Latin  classics  and  occupied  himself  fruitfully  with  the 
Elegantiae  of  Valla,  making  an  epitome  of  It.  He  could 
have  found  no  better  compend  of  the  newer  classical 
scholarship. 

Erasmus  had  progressed  notably  In  learning  by  the 
year  1493,  when  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  he  was  taken 
from  Stein  by  the  Bishop  of  Cambrai,  and  two  years 
afterv/ards  sent  to  study  theology  at  Paris,  where  he  was 
entered  In  the  malodorous  College  of  Montaigu.  His 
contempt  deepened  for  the  "  Scotists,"  and  for  scholastic 
philosophy  which  they  seemed  to  symbolize.  So  he  culti- 
vated the  classics  as  best  he  might,  and  also  taught.  He 
thus  fell  in  with  a  number  of  Englishmen,  among  them 
his  Dupil-patron,  Lord  Mountjoy,  whom  he  accompanied 
to  England  in  1499,  where  he  became  the  friend  of 
Thomas  More  and  John  Colet,  to  the  lasting  pleasure 
and  advantage  of  the  three.  At  Oxford,  Colet  suggested 
lectures  on  the  Old  Testament,  to  supplement  those  novel 
discourses  on  the  Epistles  of  Paul  with  which  he  was  then 
stirring  the  University.^  Erasmus's  antipathy  to  current 
scholastic  ways  of  treating:  Scripture  needed  no  goad. 
But  he  became  acutely  conscious  of  the  need  of  Greek  for 
one  who  would  be  a  New  Testament  scholar.  As  Oxford 
possessed  little  Greek,  he  returned  to  Paris  to  resume 
Its  study. 

2  Post,  chapter  XVIII. 


i6o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Greek  concluded  the  predominantly  acquisitive  stage  of 
Erasmus's  education.  He  studied  it  without  instructors 
or  the  modern  apparatus  of  dictionary  and  grammar. 
By  the  year  1506,  when  he  was  no  longer  young,  he  had 
made  such  progress  as  to  embolden  him  afterwards  to 
assert  that  he  learned  nothing  from  his  sojourn  in  Italy, 
which  extended  from  that  year  to  1509.  There  was  a 
Frenchman,  named  Bude,  who  could  still  have  taught 
him,  and  doubtless  did,  since  the  two  became  frequent 
correspondents,  if  not  friends.  As  the  years  increased 
Erasmus's  fame,  he  did  not  evince  a  genial  spirit  towards 
his  great  rival  for  the  primacy  of  European  scholarship. 

The  education  of  Erasmus,  as  with  all  intelligent  peo- 
ple, continued  through  his  life.  The  acquisitive  phases 
were  ahvays  interwoven  with  his  critical  development  and 
conscious  rejection  of  much  that  he  had  previously  been 
taught.  To  these  educational  processes  of  learning, 
criticism  and  rejection,  were  joined  his  more  productive 
activities,  which  also  were  to  be  educational  for  himself 
as  for  the  student  world.  These  extended  back  into  his 
acquisitive  period,  and  on  through  his  entire  life. 

This  most  effective  educator  of  northern  Europe  spent 
little  time  teaching  in  universities.  In  consequence  his 
influence,  his  effect,  was  tenfold  greater.  Unhampered 
and  undulled,  he  gave  his  entire  strength  to  scholarship 
and  the  making  of  books  which  were  of  enormous  educa- 
tional effect.  In  them  one  can  follow  —  if  one  has  suffi- 
cient leisure !  —  the  cumulative  self-expression  of  the 
author.  They  are  of  endless  bulk,  ten  large  folios  in  the 
Leyden  edition.  Had  Erasmus  written  less,  he  might  be 
more  read  today.  But  that  would  signify  little.  His 
writings  are  not  needed  now;  they  tell  us  mostly  things 
we  either  know  or  have  forgotten  to  our  advantage. 
But  they  were  needed  in  their  time,  and  were  found 
neither  too  many  nor  too  long.  They  were  serviceable 
to  the  people  of  Germany  and  France  and  England  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  contained  much  matter  which 
it  was  well  at  that  time  to  bring  to  men's  attention. 


ERASMUS  i6i 

Among  the  formal  educational  treatises  of  Erasmus, 
the  De  Ratione  Studii,^  written  in  151 1  at  Colet's  re- 
quest, presents  a  plan  for  imparting  to  the  pupil  some- 
thing of  the  wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  which  embraced  all 
knowledge:  "  omnis  fere  rerum  scientia  a  Graecis  auctori- 
bus  petenda  est";  —  one  need  not  be  surprised  at 
mediaeval  echoes  in  Erasmus's  writings.^  The  teacher, 
says  he,  should  learn  the  contents  of  the  classics  and 
arrange  their  matter  in  his  note  books,  that  he  may  im- 
part it  methodically.  If  he  lacks  a  full  library,  he  will 
find  Pliny  most  rich  in  information,  and  next  to  him 
Macrobius,  Aulus  Gellius  and  Athenaeus.  But  he  must 
"  seek  the  fontes  ipsos,  to  wit,  the  old  Greeks.  Plato 
best  teaches  philosophy,  and  Aristotle,  and  his  disciple 
Theophrastus,  and  Plotinus,  made  up  of  them  both.  In 
Christian  theology  none  is  better  than  Origen,  none  more 
subtil  than  Chrysostom,  none  holier  than  Basil."  The 
Latin  Fathers  Ambrose  and  Jerome  are  recommended, 
and  other  authors  for  various  reasons. 

Erasmus  was  well  on  in  his  sixties  when  he  wrote  an 
educational  tract  which  laid  intelligent  stress  on  the  need 
of  beginning  the  boy's  education  very  early,  and  under 
the  most  competent  masters,  who  should  employ  methods 
of  gentleness  and  understanding,  rather  than  those  of 
violence  and  fear.  This  was  the  De  pueris  ad  virtutem  ac 
literas  Uheraliter  instituendis  idqiie  protinus  a  nativitate.^ 

2  Leyden  edition  of  Erasmus's  Opera,  Tome  I,  fo.  521-530.  I  have  used 
to  advantage  W.  H.  Woodward's  Desiderius  Erasmus  concerning  the  aim 
and  method  of  Education  ( Cambridge  1904),  which  also  gives  a  transla- 
tion of  this  treatise  and  the  De  Pueris  Instituendis.  I  cannot  but  think 
that  Prof.  Woodward  might  have  made  his  translations  somewhat  closer 
to  Erasmus's  language,  and  have  been  less  free  in  the  use  of  modern  educa- 
tional phrases,  which  represent  concepts  not  current  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

*  Sometimes  he  uses  exactly  the  mediaeval  phrase,  as  in  his  letter  dedi- 
cating the  first  edition  of  the  Adagia  to  Lord  Mountjoy:  "Accordingly, 
laying  aside  all  serious  labors,  and  indulging  in  a  more  dainty  kind  of 
study,  I  strolled  through  the  gardens  provided  by  various  authors,  culling 
as  I  went  the  adages  most  remarkable  for  their  antiquity  and  excellence, 
like  so  many  flowers  of  various  sorts,  of  which  I  have  made  a  nosegay." 
F.   M.   Nichol's  translation, 

^Published  in  1529, —  Leyden  Ed.  I,  fo.  489-516.  Translated  by- 
Woodward. 


i62  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

One  notes  the  last  words  of  the  title  — "  from  their  very 
birth."  An  uneducated  man  Is  not  a  man;  institutio  or 
training  is  more  important  than  natiira.  Here  man  dif- 
fers from  the  dumb  animals, 

"whose  protection  nature  has  set  in  their  inborn  faculties;  but 
since  divine  providence  has  bestowed  the  power  of  reason  on  man 
alone,  it  has  left  the  chief  share  to  training  (Efficax  res  est  natura, 
sed  banc  vincit  efficacior  institutio).  When  nature  gave  thee  a 
son,  she  delivered  nothing  but  a  rudem  massam.  It  is  for  thee  to 
impress  the  best  character  upon  this  submissive  plastic  material. 
If  thou  art  remiss,  thou  wilt  have  a  wild  beast,  but  if  vigilant,  a 
divinity." 

This  treatise  Is  not  all  wisdom.  Erasmus  gives,  ap- 
parently from  his  favorite  Pliny,  plenty  of  absurd  exam- 
ples of  what  man  may  learn  from  brutes.  And  he  says 
that  boyhood's  proneness  to  depravity,  which  so  puzzled 
the  ancients.  Is  due  to  Adam's  sin.  But  one  will  not 
ignore  the  fault  of  bad  early  training,  he  adds,  perhaps 
with  a  submerged  smile.  He  Is  clear  as  to  the  abomina- 
tion of  spoiling  a  child  by  Indulgence  and  bad  example; 
and  shows  how  foolish  It  Is  to  leave  youth  to  acquire  by 
experience  such  practical  knowledge  as  might  properly 
be  taught. 

For  the  rest,  the  treatise  Intelligently  anticipates  many 
of  the  demands  of  modern  enlightenment  touching  ju- 
venile education;  for  example  the  need  to  consider  the 
disposition  and  faculties  of  each  child.  As  a  parent 
should  instil  In  his  child  reverence  and  love,  rather  than 
fear,  so  In  the  boy's  education,  intelligent  kindness  and 
encouragement,  not  flogging,  are  the  means  to  be  em- 
ployed. The  very  best  and  most  scholarly  men  should 
be  selected  for  schoolmasters.  There  Is  no  more  Im- 
portant function.  A  teacher  should  not  be  too  old;  in- 
deed he  should  become  a  boy  again,  that  he  may  be  loved 
by  the  boy.  If  he  understands  boy  nature  he  will  not 
treat  his  pupil  like  an  uneducated  little  old  man. 

Erasmus  speaks  of  suitable  primary  studies.  Among 
them  Is  language,  which  may  be  taught  through  pleasant 
fables,  and  by  bringing  the  boy  up  among  good  talkers. 


ERASMUS  163 

There  are  hints  for  modern  kindergartens,  summed  up  in 
the  recognition  of  the  need  to  adapt  the  teaching  to  the 
child's  nature.  The  closing  paragraphs  criticise  the 
methods  then  pursued,  and  deride  the  still  more  wretched 
instruction  of  Erasmus's  boyhood,  when  he  learned  Latin 
grammar  through  the  repetition  of  absurd  distiches,  and 
wasted  precious  time  In  the  labyrinth  of  dialectic.  So, 
through  ignorant  teachers,  the  critical  years  of  life  are 
thrown  away !  His  words  echo  the  endless  wail  over  the 
teaching  of  children;  —  teaching  by  rote,  learning  by 
rote;  not  easy  to  avoid  even  by  enlightened  modernity, 
and  perhaps  having  some  disciplinary  value. 

Erasmus  descended  more  nearly  to  the  needs  of  pupils 
In  his  De  Copia,^  a  book  to  assist  young  people  to  acquire 
a  Latin  styk.  Admirable  are  Its  generalities :  when  and 
how  to  ^nrlch,  or  condense,  the  expression  of  one's 
thoughts,  while  avoiding  repetition  In  the  one  case,  or  an 
inept  bareness  in  the  other.  The  need  of  something  to 
say  Is  pointed  out,  as  well  as  the  need  of  a  scholarly  com- 
mand of  Latin  to  clothe  one's  thought.  Erasmus  pro- 
ceeds, usefully  and  drearily,  to  a  mass  of  detail  and  ex- 
ample which  make  the  work  a  store  of  varied  classical 
phrase  and  circumlocution.  At  Colet's  solicitation 
weighted  with  coin,  Erasmus  dedicated  It  to  the  use  of 
his  friend's  foundation,  St.  Paul's  school.  It  proved  a 
wonderful  schoolbook  and  was  republished  sixty  times  in 
Erasmus's  lifetime,  and  afterwards  Indefinitely  reprinted 
and  epitomized.  Our  author's  De  conscrihendis  epistolis, 
written  ten  years  later  (1521)  makes  more  attractive 
reading,  and  was  very  useful,  judging  from  the  great  num- 
ber of  editions.  It  Is  an  excellent  treatise  on  the  episto- 
lary art  by  a  past-master  of  the  same.''' 

^  De  duplici  copia  verborum  ac  rerum,  Leyden  ed.  T.  I.  fo.  3-110. 

J  Leyden  Ed.  T.  I.  fo.  345-484.  The  excellent  Spaniard,  Juan  Luis 
Vives  (1492-1540),  an  admirer  of  Erasmus,  merits  more  than  a  short  note 
for  the  excellence  and  influence  of  his  educational  works.  He  was  a  man 
of  broad  intelligence  and  moral  purpose,  an  industrious  scholar  and 
writer.  Living  and  studying  for  many  years  at  Louvain,  Paris  and 
Bruges,  he  achieved  a  cosmopolitan  education,  while  retaining  some  of 
his  Spanish  instincts.     He  became  the  educational   adviser  of  Catharine 


i64  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

By  the  side  of  this  treatise  upon  Latin  composition  may 
be  placed  the  polemic  Ciceronianus.^  It  was  a  dialogue 
upon  the  best  form  of  literary  expression,  directed  against 
those  pedant  humanists  who  recognized  Cicero  as  their 
only  model,  and  were  becoming  indecently  pagan  in 
thought  and  expression.  The  controversy  was  not  new. 
Intelligent  men  had  fought  it  out  before  against  the 
"  apes  of  Cicero."  ^  Yet  the  latter  never  received  a  more 
elaborate  drubbing  than  from  this  dialogue,  in  which 
Erasmus  displays  his  magnificent  and  enlightened  common 
sense,  though  at  such  length  as  to  make  a  modern  reader 
cry.  How  long,  O  Lord! 

To  us  the  one  side  of  the  argument  seems  so  plain, 
the  opposite  so  foolish.  The  Erasmian  position,  sub- 
stantially that  of  Politian,  Pico  della  Mirandola  and 
many  others,  is  that  Latin  still  is  a  living  language,  to  be 
adapted  to  present  needs,  and  to  the  faculties  and  char- 
acters of  the  living  individuals  who  use  it.  Cicero  also 
was  a  living  man,  as  well  as  a  great  writer.  The  whole 
Cicero,  "  totus  Cicero,"  is  only  in  himself.  Since  you 
are  yourself,  with  your  own  surroundings,  and  your  own 
exigencies  of  conception  and  expression,  you  cannot  be 
Cicero,  nor  think  or  express  yourself  through  his  phrases. 
In  attempting  to  be  his  mirror,  you  make  a  fool  of  your- 
self. We  should  not  strive  specifically  to  imitate  Cicero, 
but  to  imitate  or  attain  to  that  true  art  of  oratory  and 
writing,  which  we  find  in  him,  and  in  others  also.  Some 
change  of  forms,  some  novelties  of  expression  are  de- 
manded by  novel  subjects  and  novel  thoughts.     Christian 

of  Aragon  and  the  tutor  of  the  princess  Mary.  He  was  more  interested 
than  Erasmus  in  instruction  in  the  vernacular,  and  equalled  him  in  his 
intelligent  ideas  upon  juvenile  education.  His  voluminous  works  have 
been  published,  and  selections  from  them  translated  from  the  Latin  into 
various  languages:  into  English,  for  example,  by  Foster  Watson  in  his 
Tudor  School-boy  Life  (1908)  and  Vives  and  the  Renascence  Education 
of  Women  (1912).  The  benevolent  intelligence  of  Vives  is  strikingly 
shown  in  his  letter  to  the  Senate  of  Bruges  Concerriinj^  the  relief  of  the 
Poor,  etc.,  translated  by  Margaret  M.  Sherwood  in  Studies  in  Social  Work, 
No.   II    (New  York,   1917). 

®  Leyden  Ed.  T.  I.  fo.  973-1026,  translated  by  Miss  I.  Scott,  (New  York 
1908). 

»  Cf.  e.g.  ante  Chapter  HI. 


ERASMUS  165 

thoughts,  for  example,  will  not  altogether  fit  the  language 
of  Cicero.  Every  phrase,  every  word,  once  had  its  in- 
ception. If  novelty  were  always  barbarism,  every  word 
was  once  a  barbarism. 

Erasmus  shows  all  this  through  the  convincing  satire 
of  his  Dialogue.  His  own  theory  and  practice  recognized 
the  rightfully  constraining  power  of  the  genius  of  a  lan- 
guage upon  everyone  using  it  in  speech  or  writing. 
Within  that  broad  conformity,  there  was  scope  for  indi- 
vidual genius  to  express  itself,  as  it  did  in  fact  in  his  own 
writings.  Theirs  was  a  pure  Latlnity,  a  formal  Latin 
grace;  yet  they  were  pervaded  and  enHvened  by  a  per- 
sonal variety  of  style  adapted  to  the  subject  and  the 
situation. 

The  evil  pedantry  which  eschewed  all  words  and 
phrases  not  found  In  Cicero,  had  led,  argues  the  Dialogue, 
to  a  paganlzatlon  of  Christian  concepts  In  a  classical 
nomenclature;  it  v/as  part  and  parcel  of  the  paganism 
which  was  pervading  conduct,  ethics,  religion,  till  it 
threatened  not  merely  to  color,  but  to  vitiate  the  Christian 
life.  "  We  are  Christian  In  name  only,"  says  the  right- 
minded  Interlocutor.  The  opposite  should  be  striven 
for;  all  our  studies  should  have  the  effect  of  making  us 
better  Christians;  they  should  be  pursued  to  the  glory  of 
Christ:  "  His  est  totius  eruditionis  et  eloquentiae  scopus." 

If  the  last  words  seem  an  echo  of  pious  convention, 
Erasmus  nevertheless  believed  that  all  scholarship  should 
make  for  a  better  understanding  of  Christianity.  Before 
tracing  the  proof  of  this  In  his  religious  writings  and 
sacred  studies,  let  us  notice  his  Adagia  which  were  so  ef- 
fective in  spreading  the  humanizing  influence  of  the 
classics.  Like  Montaigne  after  him,  he  had  a  genius  for 
modernizing  their  lessons,  and  making  them  live  again  in 
the  life  of  the  present.  In  him  humane  studies  produced 
their  perfect  fruit  in  the  dissemination  of  human  en- 
lightenment. His  whole  life  was  educational  for  him- 
self and  for  his  age.  There  was  instruction  in  everything 
he  wrote,  In  his  educational  tracts  which  we  have  noticed, 
In  his  religious  writing,  in  his  editings  and  translations,  In 


i66  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

his  Imaginative  Colloquies  and  symbolic  Satire,  and  no- 
where more  diffusely  than  In  his  huge  volume  of  Adagia}^ 

Most  genially  this  great  work  adapted  the  wisdom  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  to  the  tempers  and  understanding 
of  sixteenth  century  Europeans.  It  became  the  common- 
place book,  par  excellence,  from  which  everyone,  includ- 
ing Luther  himself,  drew  his  classical  quotations.  Year 
by  year,  Erasmus  enlarged  the  collection  for  successive 
editions,  until  they  became  "  Thousands  four  of  Adages," 
as  published  the  year  he  died.  The  name  included  what 
one  would,  in  the  way  of  proverbs,  pithy  sayings,  ad- 
mirable phrases,  taken  from  the  Ancients.  They  were  all 
full  of  vitality,  pregnant  with  meaning,  charged  with  con- 
sideration of  life. 

The  scholastic  spirit,  the  need  to  classify  and  present 
through  classification,  worked  in  the  author  while  he  was 
writing  his  prolegomena  and  was  setting  forth  the  many 
uses  of  the  wisdom  packed  In  these  old  sayings.  Yet 
their  charm  and  usefulness  were  but  academically  sug- 
gested by  the  statement  that  the  knowledge  of  proverbs 
conduces  to  many  ends,  and  most  potently  to  four,  to  wit: 
ad  philosophlam,  ad  persuadendum,  ad  decus  et  gratiam 
orationis,  ad  intelllgendos  optimos  quosque  auctores. 

Elaving  got  the  prolegomena  off  his  mind,  Erasmus  be- 
gins auspiciously  with  pleasant  comment  on  his  first  pro- 
verb, ra  Tw  <^tA(ov  Kotm,  id  est,  Amlcorum  communia  sunt 
omnia.  He  speaks  of  the  early  forms  of  this  thought, 
and  then  of  Its  later  applications,  as  among  the  Romans, 
and  so  makes  clear  its  general  human  value.  He  usually 
gives  the  original  Greek  saying  first,  and  then  its  Latin 
equivalent,  with  the  Greek  and  then  the  Latin 
examples  of  its  use.  The  first  proverb  of  the  *'  first  cen- 
tury "  of  the  "  Second  thousand  "  is  again  an  apt  Instance 
— "  SttcvSc  ^paSe'to?,  I.e.,  fcstlna  lente,"  and  he  expands  the 
matter  of  its  wisdom  through  several  folios.  The  third 
thousand  opens  with  the  *Hpa/cAciot  ttovoi,  I.e.,  Herculei  la- 
bores.     This  is,  as  it  were,  a  topic  become  proverbial, 

^°The  Adages  fill  Tome  II  of  the  Leyden  edition,  fo.  1-1212, 


ERASMUS  167 

and  Erasmus  elucidates  it  with  abundant  comment,  as  he 
does  also  the  more  cryptic  Sileni  Alcibiadis. 

Occasionally  his  treatment  of  a  proverb  expands  into 
an  essay.  A  noted  instance  is  the  Dulce  helium  inexperto, 
which  opens  the  Fourth  Thousand,  and  has  been  fre- 
quently published  and  translated  separately.^^  Erasmus 
hated  war,  as  well  might  one  whose  life  had  been  sur- 
rounded by  its  fruitless  ravages.  Tellingly  he  gives  the 
adverse  arguments,  which  applied  so  obviously  to  the 
Franco-Italian-Spanish  struggles,  with  which  he  was  fa- 
mihar,  as  he  was  writing  this  pacifist  tract  about  the  year 
1 5 14.  His  arguments  do  not  quite  reach  the  case  of  a 
state  or  people  protecting  its  freedom  from  a  foreign  foe 
or  a  domestic  tyrant.  It  is  easy  to  point  out  the  wicked- 
ness of  dynastic  wars,  and  the  folly  of  Xerxes  invading 
Greece;  but  the  armory  of  the  stoutest  pacifist  would  be 
taxed  to  find  a  valid  argument  against  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  victors  of  Marathon  and  Salamis. 

The  lengthy  disquisition  is  exceptional  in  the  Adagia, 
where  the  vast  majority  of  proverbs  and  phrases  are 
treated  shortly.  In  1532  Erasmus  published  a  not  en- 
tirely dissimilar  work,  his  eight  books  of  Apophtheg- 
mata,  which  were  sayings  and  incidents  carrying  a  lesson, 
collected  from  the  Ancients  and  adapted  to  the  use  of 
youthful  princes.  In  them  the  brave  Lacedaemonians 
pass  before  us,  Socrates  and  the  philosophers,  Philip  of 
Macedon,  his  great  son,  and  many  other  valiant  worthies 
and  wise  men.  Quite  pleasantly  the  lengthy  work  ^-  fol- 
lowed the  Adages  in  adapting  the  experience  of  the  an- 
cients to  contemporary  needs  and  tastes. 

The  religious  writings  and  sacred  studies  of  Erasmus, 
capped  by  his  edition  of  the  New  Testament  in  Greek, 
would  have  been  more  palpably  epoch-making  had  not 
the  tumultuous  genius  of  Luther  merged  all  things  gen- 
tler in  a  vast  explosion.  In  Erasmus  the  love  of  letters 
fed  the  desire  to  let  the  light  of  reason  fall  temperately 

11  The  old  English  translation  is  printed  —  Erasmus  against  War  —  iq 
the  Humanist  Library   (Boston  1907). 
i2Leyden  Ed.  T,  IV  fo.  93-379. 


i68  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

upon  the  profane  and  sacred  follies  of  mankind.  The 
same  love  of  letters  and  of  reasonableness  held  him  back 
from  Luther's  paths  of  violence,  an  abstention  destined 
to  embitter  his  later  years. 

When  about  thirty-five  years  old,  his  temper  still  un- 
warped  by  controversy,  he  wrote,  nominally  for  a  carnal- 
minded  friend, —  the  Enchiridion  Militis  Chris tiani}^ 
It  was  an  outline  of  Erasmian  piety,  and  quickly  became 
a  popular  manual.  The  friend,  or  his  godfearing  wife, 
apparently  had  asked  Erasmus  to  prescribe  a  "  vivendl 
ratlonem  "  or  system  of  living,  by  which  he  might  attain 
a  mind  worthy  of  Christ.  Erasmus's  title  means  either 
Manual  or  Dagger  of  the  Christian  soldier;  and  he  be- 
gins with  the  assertion  that  the  Christian  life  Is  warfare. 
Rites  and  professions  will  not  help,  unless  we  fight  verily 
and  spiritually  against  evil.  This  Is  the  constant  Eras- 
mian ethical  religious  note.  The  Enchiridion  will  lay 
stress  upon  the  heart  set  right  and  striving  valiantly  for 
Christ,  and  will  minimize  the  value  of  ceremonies,  vows, 
outward  acts,  and  even  the  dogmatic  theological  element. 
The  worthlessness  of  the  outer  act,  when  unaccompanied 
by  any  change  of  heart,  had  been  recognized  by  good 
men  and  even  by  the  Church  before  Erasmus.  Yet  he 
perceived  this  spiritual  principle  with  ethical  Intelligence. 
There  was  a  more  portentous  spiritual  originality  in  his 
subconscious  depreciation  of  dogmatic  theology.  Definl- 
tude,  elaborate  exactness  of  orthodoxy,  he  made  little  of. 
His  reason  and  his  humane  studies  thus  led  him  into  what 
many  of  his  contemporaries  deemed  rationalism  In  a  bad 
sense,  but  to  which  modernity  will  attach  no  evil  Imputa- 
tion. 

Yet  the  rationality  of  Erasmus  was  not  quite  freed 
from  its  intellectual  environment.  The  second  chapter 
of  the  Enchiridion  Indicates  that  he  had  not  disembar- 
rassed himself  of  the  conventional  allegorical  Interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture.^*  He  and  his  fellow  humanists  of  Italy 
and  elsewhere  commonly  applied  the  same  fancy  to  the 

13  Ley  den  Ed.  T.  V  fo.  1-66.     Written  in  1501,  published  in  1503. 
1*  See  Enchiridion,  Cap.  II  and  Cap.  VIII,  Canon  V. 


ERASMUS  169 

interpretation  of  the  classic  poets.  "  i\s  divine  Scripture 
has  little  fruit  for  him  who  sticks  to  the  letter,  so  the 
Homeric  and  Virgilian  poetry  will  be  found  helpful  if  one 
remembers  that  it  is  all  allegorical  —  cam  totam  esse 
allegoricam  —  which  none  denies  whose  lips  have  so  much 
as  tasted  the  learning  of  the  ancients." 

Chapter  third  of  the  Enchiridion  had  for  its  topic  the 
wisdom  which  is  self-knowledge,  and  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  false  knowledge  of  the  world  and  the  true  wis- 
dom of  Christ  which  the  world  thinks  folly.^^  A  manual 
of  the  Christian  life  could  not  omit  these  topics.  Hence 
this  chapter  and  several  following,  in  which  with  little 
novelty  Erasmus  shows  man  to  be  corpus  and  7nens:  with- 
out the  first,  he  were  a  deity;  without  the  second  he  were 
a  swine.  There  Is  also  the  usual  teaching  concerning 
the  outer  and  the  inner  man;  and  the  threefold  man, 
anima,  splritus,  carnis,  is  spoken  of  with  little  novel  in- 
sight. Erasmus  does  better  in  his  practical  applications, 
for  instance  in  pointing  out  that  man  may  love  Christ  In 
his  own  wife,  when  he  cherishes  Christlike  qualities  in 
her. 

His  eighth  chapter  sets  forth,  without  much  novelty, 
the  rules  of  Christian  living:  the  point  is  the  moral  pur- 
pose of  the  act,  the  end  for  which  it  is  done.  This  de- 
termines the  religious  worth  of  fasting  and  prayer,  of  let- 
ters and  learning,  and  likewise  the  worship  of  the  saints. 
''  Deem  Christ  to  be  no  empty  word,  but  nothing  else 
than  love,  simplicity,  patience,  purity;  In  fine,  whatever 
he  taught.  Understand  the  devil  to  be  nothing  else  than 
that  which  draws  one  from  these."  Taken  by  Itself  this 
is  sheer  morality,  emptied  of  dogma.  But  Erasmus  trims 
the  course  of  his  argument  to  navigate  the  open  sea,  if 
not  the  tortuous  bays,  of  the  accepted  faith.  He  had  no 
fancy  to  cast  down  whatever  might  be  upheld  with  ra- 
tional decency. 

So  he  continues  through  this  treatise,  sensible  and  In- 
telligent, pointing  always  to  the  Intent  and  moral  pur- 

15  Fo.  II.  Using  phrases  from  Paul,  Erasmus  here  adumbrates  some  of 
the  meanings  which  he  will  attach  to  this  word  stultitia  in  his  **  Praise 
of  Folly." 


I70  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

pose,  keeping  means  distinct  from  ends;  showing  how  the 
spiritual  Hfe  does  not  He  In  observances,  but  In  the  love 
of  neighbor;  and  how  monks,  even  those  reputed  holy, 
may  walk  not  In  the  spirit,  but  In  the  very  flesh,  with 
fasts  and  vigils.  In  this  full  sense,  Christ  is  the  end  of 
the  Law;  one  shall  change  his  heart,  rather  than  his  gar- 
ment; follow  the  spiritual  lesson  and  Imitate  the  Virgin 
and  the  saints,  to  whom  one  prays.  Erasmus  would  not 
sanction  reliance  on  the  sacraments,  without  spiritual  con- 
formity to  their  import.  For  the  still  carnal-minded 
Christian,  worship  may  be  no  better  than  the  sacrifice 
of  bulls  to  heathen  gods.  Yet  he  does  not  condemn  rites 
performed  as  outer  manifestations  of  the  spirit,  or  as  an 
aid  to  such  as  need  them.  He  who  does  not  feel  this 
need,  should  still  follow  the  observances  that  he  may  not 
cause  his  weaker  brother  to  stumble. ^^ 

The  years  15  ii  to  1514  were  passed  by  Erasmus 
chiefly  at  Cambridge.  During  portions  of  this  period  he 
taught  Greek  grammar  and  lectured  on  the  Letters  of 
Jerome.  But  the  best  of  his  time  seems  to  have  been 
put  upon  his  forthcoming  editions  of  Jerome's  Opera  and 
the  Greek  New  Testament,  on  both  of  which  he  had  long 
been  working.  From  Cambridge  he  proceeded  to  Basel 
to  arrange  for  their  publication  with  Froben.  Scholars 
and  printers  connected  with  the  great  printing-house  of 
Amorbach  and  Froben  were  already  preparing  an  edition 
of  Jerome;  and  Erasmus  joined  his  work  to  theirs.  By 
15 16  the  complete  edition  appeared.  Erasmus  gave  his 
time  also  to  editions  of  Augustine  and  other  Church 
Fathers.  But  that  spent  on  Jerome,  especially  upon  his 
epistles,  was  a  labor  of  love;  for  above  all  the  other 
fathers,  he  admired  Jerome,  who,  he  says  in  a  letter  to 
Leo  X,  delights  by  his  eloquence,  teaches  by  his  erudi- 
tion, ravishes  by  his  holiness.  He  is  tempted  to  place 
Jerome's  stvle  above  Cicero's;  this  was  rhetorical  exag- 
geration.    But  the  writings   of  this   admirable    scholar 

^®  The  rational  qualities  of  the  Enchiridion  reappear  in  the  Institutio 
Principis  Christiana,  written  for  Charles  V.  Leyden  Ed.  T.  IV  fo.  560- 
6x2. 


ERASMUS  171 

and  letter-writer  appealed  most  sympathetically  to  Eras- 
mus. 

Reasons  for  going  behind  the  Vulgate  to  the  Greek 
text  of  the  New  Testament  appealed  to  few.  For  what 
strikes  us  as  the  only  sure  method,  that  of  always  looking 
beyond  popular  versions  to  the  original  document,  was 
then  accepted  only  by  the  most  advanced  scholarship;  and 
when  applied  to  Scripture  it  seemed  subversive  of  au- 
thority and  faith.  The  theology  of  the  early  sixteenth 
century,  Hke  that  of  the  fifteenth  or  the  twelfth,  in  so  far 
as  it  rested  upon  Scripture  and  its  interpretation,  rested 
on  the  Vulgate.  To  suggest  that  there  was  a  more  cer- 
tain text  might  impugn  the  authority  of  the  Church,  not 
to  mention  the  Holy  Ghost  who  always  had  inspired  the 
Church's  dictates  and  beHefs. 

So  one  realizes  how  profoundly  educational  was  the 
publication  of  the  Greek  New  Testament,  with  annota- 
tions upon  its  meanings  and  a  revised  Latin  version;  also 
what  suspicion  and  disapproval  were  aroused.  An  ex- 
ample may  be  given  from  the  well-meaning  pen  of  his  cor- 
respondent Dorphius,  who  sought  by  expostulation  and 
lengthy  argument  to  turn  Erasmus  from  his  undertaking: 
"  You  are  proposing  to  correct  the  Latin  copies  by  the 
Greek.  But  if  I  show  you  that  the  Latin  version  has  no 
mixture  of  falsehood  or  mistake,  will  you  not  admit  that 
such  a  work  is  unnecessary?  But  this  Is  what  I  claim 
for  the  Vulgate,  since  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  Universal  Church  has  been  In  error  for  so  many 
generations  in  her  use  of  this  edition,  nor  Is  it  probable 
that  so  many  holy  Fathers  have  been  mistaken,  who  in  re- 
liance upon  It  have  defined  the  most  arduous  questions  In 
General  Councils,  which,  it  Is  admitted  by  most  theolo- 
gians as  well  as  lawyers,  are  not  subject  to  error  in  mat- 
ters of  faith."  1^ 

Besides  such  decent  arguments,  there  was  abuse  from 
the  more  violent.  But  Erasmus  cut  the  wind  from  many 
hostile  sails  by  obtaining  the  approval  of  Pope  Leo  X, 

17  Trans,  from  Nichols,  Epist.  of  Erasmus,  II,  p.  169. 


172  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  dedicating  the  work  to  him.     He  laid  stress  upon  his 
reverence  and  conservatism. 

"  The  New  Testament  in  Greek  and  Latin,"  he  writes  to  Leo 
in  August,  15 16,  ''revised  by  us,  together  with  our  annotations, 
has  been  published  for  some  time,  under  the  safeguard  of  your 
auspicious  name.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  work  pleases  every- 
one, but  I  find  that  up  to  this  time,  it  has  certainly  been  approved 
by  the  principal  theologians.  ...  By  this  labour  we  do  not  intend 
to  tear  up  the  old  and  commonly  accepted  edition,  but  to  emend 
it  in  some  places  where  it  is  corrupt,  and  to  make  it  clear  where  it 
is  obscure;  and  this  is  not  by  the  dreams  of  my  own  mind,  nor  as 
they  say,  with  unwashed  hands,  but  partly  by  the  evidence  of  the 
earliest  manuscripts,  and  partly  by  the  opinion  of  those  whose  learn- 
ing and  sanctity  have  been  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  I  mean  Jerome,  Hilary,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Chrysostom, 
and  Cyril.  Meantime  we  are  always  prepared  to  give  our  reasons, 
without  presumption,  for  anything  which  we  have  rightly  taught, 
or  to  correct,  without  grudging,  any  passage  where,  as  men,  we 
have  unwittingly  fallen  into  error."  ^^ 

In  the  preface  to  the  later  edition  of  1524,  Erasmus 
says :  Habemus  fontes  Salvatorls  —  what  but  salvation 
can  we  draw  from  them?  It  is  safer  to  go  to  them  than 
read  the  theologians.  It  Is  proper  to  draw  from  the 
sources  this  philosophy  —  hanc  phllosophiam  —  from 
which  we  are  called  Christians.  Whoever  would  be 
called  such,  should  not  be  Ignorant  of  the  dogmata  of  his 
King.  Who  could  be  a  Franciscan  and  not  know  the 
regiila  of  Francis;  so  one  should  know  the  regula  of 
Christ. 

For  the  editing  of  the  text,  Erasmus  had  not  the  ap- 
paratus, or  the  knowledge,  or  the  painstaking  habit  of 
modern  scholarship.  Yet  he  perceived  the  problems  and 
difficulties  which  he  had  not  the  patience  and  equipment 
to  solve.  Incited  perhaps  by  Colet's  way  of  viewing 
Paul's  epistles  In  their  historical  setting,  Erasmus  weighed 
the  human  knowledge,  or  Ignorance,  possessed  by  the  In- 
spired writers  of  the  New  Testament,  and  sought  to 
elucidate  their  meanings  from  a  consideration  of  the  hls- 

18  Trans,  from  Nichols  o.  c.  II,  p.  316.  See  also  Erasmus  to  Bullock, 
Nichols,  o.  c.  II,  pp.  324  sqq. 


ERASMUS  173 

torical  conditions  under  which  they  wrote.  He  was 
brave  as  a  scholar.  If  ingenuousness  did  not  mark  his 
relations  with  friends  and  patrons,  and  if  the  dilemmas  of 
a  distasteful  religious  conflict  drove  him  to  tergiversa- 
tion, he  never  lacked  courage  when  defending  the  freedom 
of  intelligent  thinking  and  the  sort  of  truth  he  understood 
and  cared  for.  It  was  the  bravery  of  a  man  defending 
his  own  home. 

Erasmus  effectively  defended  his  Greek  Testament,  as 
well  as  his  Latin  version  and  his  separately  published 
Paraphrase,  in  an  Apologia  Argumentum  "  against  cer- 
tain unlearned  and  evil  men."  A  passage  not  of  a  pole- 
mic nature  may  be  given  to  show  how  he  expressed  the 
views  of  sundry  of  his  mediaeval  predecessors  in  open- 
mlndedness.  More  than  one  of  them  had  found  fore- 
shadowings  of  Christian  truth  in  the  heathen  philoso- 
phers; and  It  was  also  a  usual  conviction,  picturesquely  set 
forth  by  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,i^  that  the  Old  Testament 
was  the  umbra  of  the  New.  Erasmus  expresses  the  same 
opinions : 

"  Since  the  Old  Testament  was  the  shadow  and  preparatory 
discipline  for  the  Evangelical  Philosophy,  and  since  the  Evangelical 
teaching  is  at  once  the  restoration  and  perfection  of  nature,  as  first 
created  in  purity,  it  should  not  seem  surprising  if  it  were  given  to 
certain  gentile  philosophers,  by  the  force  of  nature  to  discern  some 
matters  which  agree  with  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  Paul  bears  wit- 
ness that,  from  the  visible  fabric  of  the  world,  they  gathered  what 
the  eye  could  not  see,  but  the  mind  could  comprehend,  even  the 
eternal  power  and  divinity  of  God.  It  was  especially  congruous 
that  Christ  should  bring  nothing  save  that  of  which  the  shadow  or 
scintilla  had  gone  before  in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  by 
which  the  faith  of  all  would  be  the  more  inclined  toward  a  thing 
not  altogether  sudden  and  unexpected.  Therefore,  whatever 
Christ  set  forth,  was  first  promised  in  the  oracles  of  the  holy 
prophets,  shadowed  in  figures,  and  even  fragmentarily  expressed."  ^° 

This  passage  presents  the  fact  of  spiritual  evolution  or 
dev^elopment,  as  many  passages  had  done  In  the  works  of 

19  See  The  Mediae'val  Mind,  Vol.  II,  p.  100. 

20  Erasmus,  Epistola  de  Phil.  Evangelica,  printed  in  T.  VI  of  the  Leyden 
Ed.  before  the  New  Testament, 


174  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

mediaeval  doctors.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  still  in 
the  time  of  Erasmus,  men  saw  more  definitely  than  to- 
day the  preordainment  of  God  and  his  providential  direc- 
tion of  the  entire  process. 

Two  works  remain  to  be  spoken  of,  perhaps  the  most 
constantly  read  of  all  Erasmus's  writings,  both  in  his  life- 
time and  since  his  death :  The  Praise  of  Folly  and  the 
Colloquies.^^  Though  differing  in  form,  they  agree  in 
substance;  and  together  express  the  opinions  of  the  au- 
thor upon  those  matters  of  contemporary  life,  belief,  and 
superstition,  which  roused  his  interest,  elicited  his  ap- 
proval, or  drew  his  criticism  and  contempt. 

The  Praise  of  Folly  is  called  a  declamatio  by  its  author, 
a  term  carrying  the  idea  of  something  entertaining. 
That  the  composition  was  a  jeux  d'esprit  is  abundantly 
stated  in  a  letter  of  dedication  to  Thomas  More,^^  in 
whose  house  the  book  was  written.  Its  scheme  had  been 
the  writer's  diversion  when  returning  from  Italy;  and 
now  he  wished  the  protection  of  More's  name  "  For 
wranglers  perhaps  will  not  be  wanting,  who  may  assail  it, 
on  the  score  that  these  trifles  are  sometimes  more  friv- 
olous than  becomes  a  theologian,  and  again  more  biting 
than  accords  with  Christian  moderation;  or  will  exclaim 
that  we  are  bringing  back  the  Old  Comedy  or  the  pen  of 
Lucian,  and  seizing  everything  with  the  teeth."  Yet 
study  should  have  its  relaxations,  especially  when  they 
are  such  as  may  bring  suggestion  to  the  reader  who  is  not 
dull.  *'  Others  will  pass  judgment  on  me;  and  yet,  un- 
less I  am  egregiously  deceived  by  self-conceit,  we  have 
praised  Folly  not  altogether  foolishly."  It  is  not  too 
biting,  seeing  that  he  has  mentioned  no  names,  and  has 
impartially  satirized  the  vices  of  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men. 

So  then  the  Praise  of  Folly  is  a  satire,  meant  to  amuse, 

21  Mwpi'as  'E7/CW/A10J/  id  est  Stultitiae  Laus,  declamatio,  Levden  Ed.  IV 
fo.  402-504,  first  published  in  1511;  Colloquia  familiaria,  Leyden  Ed.  I, 
627-890;  first  published  in  1516,  and  added  to  in  the  innumerable  subse- 
quent editions. 

22  Printed  and  usually  translated  with  the  work;  also  by  Nichols,  Epist. 
pf  Erasmus,  II,  p.  i  sqq. 


ERASMUS  175 

but  also,  as  gradually  becomes  evident,  Intended  to  in- 
struct and  improve.  The  writer  does  not  bind  himself 
to  any  single  Idea  of  his  protagonist.  Folly  has  many 
shades  of  meaning.  At  the  first  it  appears  as  life's  hi- 
larious and  impulsive  energy  of  desire,  a  child  of  Plutus.^' 
Folly  is  impulse,  childish  or  mature,  innocent  or  debased, 
at  all  events  not  disillusioned.  For  Illusion  Is  a  part  of 
desire  and  action;  who  is  without  It  Is  a  dried  and  ham- 
strung Stoic ! 

At  first  the  book  makes  kindly  and  approving  fun  of 
the  ways  of  action  and  the  foibles  and  weaknesses  of  man- 
kind. It  is  not  mordant,  only  amused.  But  gradually 
from  fools  innocent  and  natural  and  undebased.  It  passes 
to  those  whose  illusions  are  vicious  in  their  setting  and 
results.  Such  are  stultified  grammarians,  scribblers,  so- 
phisters;  such  are  passionate  dicers;  and  then  those  ad- 
dicted to  the  marvellous  and  incredible,  gaping  fools, 
greedy  of  strange  tales,  who  ascribe  virtue  to  shrines  and 
images,  and  to  vows  made  to  saints.  Worse  than  such 
are  they  who  rely  on  rotten  pardons,  and  think  to  meas- 
ure, as  by  clepsydras,  the  ages,  years,  months,  days,  which 
they  have  knocked  off  from  Purgatory.  Priests  promote 
these  evil  follies,  and  reap  gain  from  them.  Now  the 
satire  becomes  mordant:  it  ridicules.  It  lashes  the  fool- 
vices,  their  panders  and  their  votaries;  the  fool-sophisters, 
Scotlsts,  dabblers  in  split  hairs  and  things  incomprehen- 
sible, and  the  like-minded  theologians,  with  their  Impos- 
sible fool-questions;  and  then  the  Monks!  These  are 
well  scourged.  As  to  kings,  allowance  Is  made  for  the 
blinding  efltect  of  their  exalted  station;  but  their  cour- 
tiers are  handled  roughly.  The  discourse  pounces  upon 
Popes  and  Cardinals  and  bishops;  the  lashing  becomes 
merciless.  Luther  might  lay  on  more  violently,  but  not 
more  deftly. 

After  this,  the  satirical  element  Is  genially  dispersed; 
the  bitterness  Is  past.  Citing  first  the  sayings  of  gentile 
authors  and  then  the  teaching  of  Christ,  Folly  finds  the 

23  One  may  compare  it  with  that  all-embracing  animal  desire  symbolized 
by  Rabelais  in  his  "  Gaster."     See  post,   Chapter  XIII. 


176  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

earth  full  of  fools,  and  none  to  be  called  good  or  wise 
save  God  alone.  Folly  is  part  of  man,  and  may  even  be 
his  better  part,  more  excellent  than  his  wisdom.  St. 
Paul  speaks  "  as  a  fool."  Christ  bids  his  followers  con- 
sider the  lilies  of  the  field;  bids  them  take  no  thought  of 
what  they  shall  say  when  delivered  up.  Woe  unto  the 
wise !  he  cries,  and  gives  thanks  to  his  Father  for  hav- 
ing hidden  the  Kingdom  of  heaven  from  them  and  re- 
vealed it  unto  babes.  Seeing  that  "  the  foolishness  of 
God  is  wiser  than  man,"  let  us  be  "  fools  for  Christ's 
sake,"  for  the  sake  of  Him  who  crowned  his  life  by  the 
"  foolishness  of  the  Cross."  In  fine,  concludes  the  au- 
thor, "  the  Christian  religion  seems  to  have  some  rela- 
tionship with  folly,  and  is  not  in  accord  with  wisdom." 
The  true  Christian  will  scorn  the  crowd  which  relies  on 
the  ceremonial  of  the  flesh,  and  address  himself  utterly 
to  the  spirit.  The  crowd  will  think  this  insanity.  And 
truly  the  life  which  is  in  the  spirit  and  has  foretaste  of 
eternal  beatitude,  partakes  of  madness,  like  the  madness 
of  lovers  praised  by  Plato. 

The  Colloquies,  the  Familiar  Talks  or  Dialogues,  of 
Erasmus  passed  through  sixty  editions  in  the  author's 
life-time.  Condemned  by  the  Sorbonne,  also  denounced 
by  Luther,  they  only  became  more  widely  read;  they  were 
used  in  schools  as  texts  of  Latinity  and  of  enlightenment. 
They  had  been  written  and  brought  together  by  the  au- 
thor in  the  course  of  the  twenty-five  years  or  so  begin- 
ning about  1500.  More  voluminous,  more  multifarious, 
than  the  Praise  of  Folly,  they  are  withal  simpler.  No 
elusively  doubling  thread  of  meaning  runs  through  them; 
they  are  just  what  they  are,  a  series  of  familiar  dialogues, 
between  various  fictitious  persons,  upon  almost  any  topic 
of  daily  life  or  current  practice  and  opinion.  Opening  in 
formulae  of  polite  conversation;  they  quickly  turn  to  chat 
of  plays  and  pastimes;  of  horse-cheats  and  the  tricks  of 
common  beggars;  of  the  villainies  of  a  soldier's  life;  of 
the  contemptible  lots  of  benefice-hunters;  of  early  rising 
and  temperate  living;  of  marriages  and  funerals;  of 
convivial  feasts  and  those  at  which  there  is  more  serious 


ERASMUS  177 

flow  of  soul.  They  discuss  common  superstitions,  rash 
vows,  and  the  deceits  practised  on  would-be  nuns;  the 
vain  pilgrimages  made  to  St.  James  of  Compostella  and 
across  the  sea;  they  hold  up  to  view  the  heathen  follies, 
the  ceremonials  and  corruptions,  which  marked  the  con- 
duct of  the  Church.  The  speakers  are  shown  In  all  man- 
ner of  situations :  In  shipwrecks,  funerals,  on  silly  pilgrim* 
ages,  fooled  by  astrologers  and  alchemists,  grovelling 
in  superstition  or  practising  upon  the  superstitious. 
Through  them  runs  the  most  uncommon  common  sense  of 
the  writer;  his  Intelligent  apprehension  of  the  real  point; 
his  rational  consideration  of  It.  One  sees  his  tolerance  of 
whatever  Is  not  positively  false  and  harmful;  his  respect 
for  honest  and  respectable  opinion,  qualities  conducing  to 
a  recognition  of  the  worth  of  honest  scholarship  and  the 
desirableness  of  Intellectual  freedom,  within  the  bounds 
of  decency.  The  book  Itself  Is  brave  and  free  in  its  ridi- 
cule of  abuses  which  still  reposed  on  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  and  from  which  came  part  of  the  Church's 
revenue. 

Erasmus  maintained  that  he  attacked  the  abuse  and  not 
the  ecclesiastical  institution.  But  attacks  on  the  one  are 
apt  to  smirch  the  other.  Men  do  not  notice  such  distinc- 
tions. An  attack  on  Indulgences  goes  to  the  heart  of 
much,  although  one  may  Insist  that  nothing  has  been  said 
against  absolution  following  upon  repentance  and  atone- 
ment. Who  shall  draw  the  line  between  abuse  and  in- 
stitution? And  In  Christianity,  when  has  the  line  been 
drawn  betvv^een  true  faith  and  piety,  and  the  superstitions 
wrapping  the  hearts  of  Ignorant  believers?  Assuredly 
the  worship  of  the  Virgin  and  the  saints  Is  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic tenet.  But  "  The  Shipwreck  "  ^^  ridicules  calling  on 
the  saints  and  on  the  Virgin  by  flattering  titles.  What 
had  she  to  do  with  the  Sea?  Note  the  utterly  disinte- 
grating answer:  "  In  ancient  times,  Venus  took  care  of 
mariners,  because  she  was  believed  to  be  born  of  the  sea; 
and  because  she  has  left  off  to  take  care  of  them,  the  Vlr- 

24  Vol.  I,  p.  275  sqq.  of  Bailey's  translation,  2  vols.  (London,  1878).  If 
is  the  Naufragiiim,  Leyden  Ed.  I.  fo.  712  sqq. 


178  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

gin  Mother  was  put  In  the  place  of  her  that  was  a  mother, 
but  not  a  Virgin."  This  quite  Indehbly  connects  the 
worship  of  the  Virgin  with  the  heathen  cult  of  Venus. 

In  the  Religions  Pilgrimage, ^^^  more  ridicule  is  put  upon 
the  Virgin  and  the  saints  and  upon  pilgrimages.  At  the 
end,  the  sensible  speaker  tells  how  he,  who  never  saw 
Rome,  performs  his  Roman  Stations:  "  After  that  man- 
ner I  walk  about  my  house,  I  go  to  my  study,  and  take 
care  of  my  daughter's  chastity;  thence  I  go  into  my  shop, 
and  see  what  my  servants  are  doing;  then  into  the  kitchen, 
and  see  if  anything  be  amiss  there;  and  so  from  one  place 
to  another,  to  observe  what  my  wife,  and  what  my  chil- 
dren are  doing,  taking  care  that  everyone  is  at  his  busi- 
ness. These  are  my  Roman  Stations."  Such  excellent 
sense  may  be  rather  solvent  of  religious  observance. 

But  the  Colloquies  give  utterance  to  a  piety  which  is 
direct,  sincere,  ethical,  pregnant  with  the  religion  of  the 
spirit.  Examples  are  "  An  Enquiry  concerning  Faith," 
"  The  Religious  Treat,"  and  "  A  Child's  Piety."  ^^  In 
the  last  the  excellent  youth,  stating  his  own  creed,  comes 
near  to  stating  that  of  Erasmus:  "  I  believe  firmly  what 
I  read  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  the  Creed  called  the 
Apostles,  and  I  don't  trouble  my  head  any  farther;  I  leave 
the  rest  to  be  disputed  and  defined  by  the  clergy,  if  they 
please;  and  if  anything  is  in  common  use  with  Christians 
that  is  not  repugnant  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  I  observe  it 
for  this  reason,  that  I  may  not  ofiend  other  people." 

His  friend  asks,  "  What  Thales  taught  you  that  phi- 
losophy? " 

''  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  very  young,  I  happened  to  live 
In  the  house  of  that  honestest  of  men,  John  Colet." 

In  this  way  Erasmus  testifies  to  the  pious  and  reason- 
able Influence  exerted  on  him  by  that  balanced  and  pene- 
trating English  mind. 

The  purposes,  the  opinions,  the  qualities  of  Erasmus 
reveal  themselves  in  his  works.     These   reflect  his   en- 

25  Bailey,  o.  c.  II,  i ;  Leyden  Ed.,  fo.  774  sqq. 

2"  This  is  the  Oonfahtilatio  pia,  Leyden  Ed.  fo.  648  sqq.  The  two  former 
are  fo.  728  sqq. ;  and  672  sqq.     They  are  all  in  Vol.  I  of  Bailey's  Trans. 


ERASMUS  179 

vironment  and  his  nature,  making  a  very  adequate  self- 
expression  of  the  man  Erasmus;  and  the  self-expression 
of  a  man  is  always  true.  Had  Erasmus  possessed  the 
Titan  nature  of  a  Luther,  convulsed  with  convictions  as 
violent  as  they  were  trenchant,  his  self-expression  would 
have  appealed  to  us  more  pointedly  than  it  does  from 
out  the  compass  of  those  huge  ten  folios  of  the  Leyden 
edition.  His  innumerable  writings  did  their  work  in  their 
time,  and  still  interest  us  historically.  They  spread  the 
Erasmian  personality  before  us.  He  who  may  bring 
himself  to  read  them  will  note  everywhere  facility  of 
presentation,  broad,  proportioning  scholarship,  not  too 
exact,  nor  always  profound;  balanced  common  sense  and 
clear  intelligence  which  grasp  the  veritable  point;  Inter- 
est in  well  authenticated  fact,  linguistic,  historical  and  ra- 
tional, which  Is  the  scholar's  truth;  care  for  what  Is  truly 
ethical,  dependent  on  motive  and  Interest,  and  not  bound 
up  In  ceremony  and  observance;  Insistence  on  unhampered 
study,  on  the  rights  of  scholarship,  on  freedom  to  reach 
the  most  rationally  verified  result;  recognition  also  of  mu- 
tually tolerating  differences  of  sensible  opinion,  but  no 
patience  for  wilful  Ignorance  and  stubbornness;  a  cherish- 
ing of  piety  and  rational  religion,  but  with  no  taste  for 
dogma  or  metaphysics,  and  as  little  for  the  transports  of 
rqllglous  rapture. 

Erasmus  followed  earthly,  rather  than  heavenly  light. 
He  cared  for  the  religion  of  Christ,  and  he  loved  schol- 
arship. From  some  of  his  expressions  one  or  the  other 
might  seem  his  chief  care.  But,  with  him,  both  belonged 
to  the  same  quest  of  rational  truth.  He  followed  letters; 
as  a  scholar  also  he  studied  Scripture,  still  seeking  to  es- 
tablish the  surest  record  of  the  Faith.  He  was  the 
scholar,  not  the  sceptic,  in  religion;  and  never  doubted  of 
the  salvation  brought  by  Christ,  as  evidenced  by  Scrip- 
ture. Thus  he  was  evangelical,  but  tolerantly,  without  a 
wish  to  tear  down  whatever  had  been  recognized  or  built 
UD  by  the  Church,  so  far  as  It  did  not  counter  either  the 
Gospel  or  a  rational  morality. 

One  can  foresee  the  attitude  of  such  a  nature  toward 


i8o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  Lutheran  Reformation.  As  was  generally  said,  no 
one  had  done  as  much  to  open  men's  eyes  to  the  follies, 
abuses  and  corruptions,  infecting  the  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion. His  writings  had  had  universal  currency  and  cor- 
responding influence.  The  number  of  editions  printed 
of  them  one  and  all  is  almost  incredible.-"^  Never  was  a 
scholar  so  widely  read;  and  never  was  a  scholar's  word 
more  potent.  It  seems  safe  to  say  that  no  man  had  done 
as  much  to  prepare  the  mind  of  Europe  for  religious  re- 
formation as  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam."*^ 

Yet  when  it  came  through  Luther,  he  could  not  go 
along  with  it.  It  was  to  be  national;  this  universal  Lat- 
inist  had  no  appreciation  of  nationality.  It  was  to  be 
passionate,  violent,  intolerant,  proceeding  with  fixed 
ideas.  There  was  little  here  to  gain  his  sympathy.  Still 
less  could  he  sympathize  with  the  Catholic  Church,  which 
was  more  corrupt  and  quite  as  violent.  With  his  mind 
set  on  enlightened  scholarship,  both  sacred  and  profane, 
how  could  Erasmus  not  oppose  whatever  threatened 
either?  How  he  hated  this  mutual  intolerance  and 
wrath,  which  might  extinguish  letters  and  intellectual  free- 
dom! 

There  had  been  a  conflict  into  which  he  could  throw 
himself  with  all  his  mind,  because  there,  as  it  seemed  to 
him,  one  side  stood  for  piety  and  the  full  light  of  schol- 
arship, while  the  other's  strength  lay  in  ignorance  and 
prejudice.  It  was  the  struggle  of  Johann  Reuchlin, 
against  those  who  fought  to  suppress  the  study  of  He- 
brew and  with  it  the  freedom  of  letters.  Erasmus  was 
on  Reuchlin's  side.  He  felt  himself  defending  every- 
thing he  cherished,  while  Reuchlin's  persecutors  were  the 
kind  of  men  he  detested  and  despised.^^" 

27  The  stupendous  lists  are  modestly  and  succinctly  given  in  Bibl'wteca 
Erasmiana,  Repertoire  des  oeuvres  d'Erasme,  published  in  1893  at  Ghent, 
and  distributed  gratis  and  graciously  to  promote  the  study  of  Erasmus. 

28  By  the  year  1517,  Erasmus's  religious  influence  had  been  recognized: 
"me  Christum  sapere  docuisti,"  writes  one  correspondent,  (Allen  o.  c.  II; 
p.  341  (1516),  and  another  hails  him:  "Salve  Erasme  vas  electionis  et 
secunde  post  Paulum  doctor  gentium."     Allen  o.  c.  II,  p.   50<;. 

2»  See  Nichols,  Epist.  of  Erasmus,  Vol.  II,  pp.  189,  193,  and  ante,  Chapter 
yi.     Later,  under  stress  of  the  Lutheran  conflict,  Erasmus  was  inclined  to 


ERASMUS  i8i 

Erasmus's  later  years  were  made  unhappy  by  the  part- 
ing of  the  ways  between  the  humanism  of  the  North  and 
the  Reform  which  at  first  it  had  seemed  to  carry  in  its 
train.  He  recognized  no  hostile  rivalry  between  secular 
and  religious  truth.  It  was  monstrous  that  the  truth 
which  came  by  faith  should  not  respect  the  aid  of  letters 
and  cherish  the  truth  which  came  through  scholarship. 
Toward  the  end  he  wrote  bitterly  to  Pirckheimer: 
"  Wherever  Lutheranism  reigns,  there  is  an  end  to  let- 
ters. Yet  these  men  have  been  chiefly  (maxime)  nour- 
ished on  letters."  ^^  His  life  had  been  an  unhampered 
progress  In  scholarship  and  fame  till  the  Lutheran  con- 
troversy reached  such  importance  as  to  compel  men  to 
take  sides.  Incapable  of  this,  Erasmus  became  suspect 
to  both  and  was  driven  to  subterfuge.  His  discomfort 
and  unhappiness  appear  In  his  correspondence  from  this 
time  to  the  close  of  his  life.^^ 

Erasmus  never  could  have  joined  with  Luther.  The 
opposite  tempers  of  the  two  would  have  held  them  apart. 
And  before  many  years,  Erasmus  thought  he  saw  the  Re- 
form throwing  the  world  into  a  spiritual  and  political 
anarchy.  But  he  could  not  go  along  with  the  Church  In 
Its  measures  to  suppress  the  Reform;  for  he  detested  per- 
secution, and  deemed  force  worse  than  useless  In  matters 
of  the  Faith.  The  Church  should  conquer  only  through 
Its  reasonableness  and  Its  persuasion,  and  its  Imitation  of 
Christ.  Alas!  neither  side  seemed  to  hold  a  brief  for 
scholarship  and  the  simple  truth  and  freedom  of  the  Gos- 
pel. In  the  end,  Erasmus  elected  to  adhere  to  the 
Church;  and  it  was  as  touching  the  point  of  veritable 
freedom,  free-will  Indeed,  on  which  he  first  formally 
took  his  stand  against  the  teaching  of  Luther.  His  de 
lihero  Arhitrio  (ic;24)  evinced  his  common  sense  In  the 
matter  and  showed  him  on  the  side  of  freedom,  to  which 
he  felt  free-will  to  be  essential. 

minimize  his  interest  in  Reuchlin.  See  Ep.  to  Wolsey  (1519),  Allen,  o.  c. 
III.  p.  589. 

30  Ley  den  Ed.  T.  Ill,  Ep.  1006,  fo.  1139. 

'1  The  letter  to  Wolsey,  1519,  Allen  o.  c.  Ill,  p.  587  sqq.,  is  typical. 
See  ib.  Ill,  pp.  527  and  540. 


i82  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

At  all  events  he  was  facile  princeps  among  the  men  of 
letters  of  the  North.  He  enumerates  his  works  in  the 
Catalogus  addressed  to  Botzheim  in  1523.^^  Touching 
upon  reflections  made  upon  him  by  Luther's  friends,  he 
says: 

"  they  have  nothing  that  they  can  bring  against  me,  except  that 
I  would  not  profess  at  the  peril  of  my  head,  what  either  I  did  not 
accept,  or  held  as  doubtful,  or  did  not  approve,  or  should  have  pro- 
fessed to  no  purpose.  For  the  rest,  who  has  written  more  against 
faith  in  ceremonies,  against  the  superstition  of  fasts,  of  cult  and 
vows,  against  those  who  ascribe  more  to  the  commentaries  of  men 
than  to  the  divine  Scriptures,  who  set  human  edicts  above  God's 
precepts,  and  rely  for  aid  upon  the  saints  more  than  on  Christ  him- 
self;  against  the  scholastic  theology  corrupted  by  philosophic  and 
sophistic  subtleties,  against  the  rashness  of  defining  what  you  will ; 
against  the  absurd  opinions  of  the  crowd?  .  .  .  These  and  much 
besides,  which  I  have  taught  according  to  the  measure  of  grace 
given  me,  I  have  taught  steadfastly,  not  clamoring  against  anyone 
w^ho  could  teach  something  better.  And  Erasmus  has  taught  noth- 
ing but  rhetoric  (eloquentlam)  !  Would  that  they  could  persuade 
my  silly  friends  of  this,  who  continually  boast  that  whatever  Luther 
has  taught  he  has  drawn  from  my  writings !  .  .  .  The  sum  of  my 
crimes  Is  that  I  am  more  moderate;  and  for  this  I  hear  111  things 
from  both  sides,  because  I  exhort  both  to  gentler  counsels.  I  do 
not  condemn  liberty  founded  on  love." 

Erasmus  was  not  always  quite  so  sweet  as  In  the  last 
phrase. 

32  Allen,  o.  c.  I,  pp.  1-46.     The  passage  I  have  translated  is  on  p.  29. 
Compare  it  with  the  letter  to  Gacchus,  Leyden  Ed.  T.  Ill,  col.  1 724-1730. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  SPIRITUAL  AND  POLITICAL  PREPARATION  FOR 
LUTHER 

If  ever  a  man  expressed  himself  and  his  people,  It  was 
Martin  Luther.  Yet  he  spoke  mainly  in  the  language  of 
the  past.  His  doctrines  won  their  acceptance  through 
their  religious  strength,  their  timely  pertinency  to  the 
German  social  and  political  situation,  and  through  their 
emphatic  statement.  Luther's  power  of  expression 
drove  his  teachings  into  the  German  mind.  The  rugged 
phrases  of  the  Address  to  the  German  Nobility  and  The 
Freedom  of  the  Christian  man  worked  themselves  into 
the  German  blood.  Yet  still  they  spoke  in  the  language 
of  the  past.  If  Luther  violently  rejected  such  of  its  for- 
mularies as  shocked  his  intelligence  and  countered  his  con- 
victions, he  continued  to  express  himself  and  his  people 
through  old  and  well-tried  forms.  But  he  brought  to  his 
expression  his  own  spiritual  experiences  and  his  under- 
standing of  the  world  about  him. 

Expression  in  language  Is  not  merely  the  symbol  of 
thought,  but  Its  completion,  Its  finished  form.  Some- 
times, however,  as  these  symbols,  these  phrases  or  formu- 
lations, pass  from  one  generation  to  another,  they  fall 
out  of  accord  with  other  thoughts  and  convictions,  fruits 
of  further  experience  and  knowledge,  which  may  be  seek- 
ing expression  In  the  later  time.  To  some  more  zeal- 
ously advancing  minds,  old  symbols  and  formulations  will 
seem  to  have  become  outworn,  used  up,  fit  only  for  dis- 
carding and  the  new  time's  Intellectual  scrap-heap;  and 
even  more  patient  souls  may  dumbly  feel  that  their  time- 
honored  thoughts  fail  to  bring  comfort  or  conviction. 
In  fine  as  the  old  symbols  cease  to  correspond  with  the 
current  consideration  of  life,  they  cease  to  express  vitally 
the  later  generation. 

183 


i84  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Moreover,  when  concepts  or  symbols,  and  the  Institu- 
tions in  which  they  may  have  been  Incorporated,  cease  to 
correspond  with  the  thinking  of  a  later  time,  and  for  that 
reason  are  no  longer  Instinct  with  life,  then,  like  sickly 
human  bodies,  they  become  open  to  corruption,  prone  to 
disease.  This  Is  seen  most  clearly  when  the  conception 
has  worked  Itself  out  In  customs,  pilgrimages  for  exam- 
ple, or  the  granting  of  Indulgences  for  sins;  or  when  It  Is 
embodied  in  an  Institution,  monastlcism,  if  one  will,  or  a 
priesthood,  or  a  universal  church.  Let  us  note  some  In- 
cidents of  the  course  through  which  concepts  or  symbols 
conceived  in  the  patristic  period,  or  before  it,  and  ac- 
cepted In  the  Middle  Ages,  were  developed  Into  dogmas, 
expanded  In  beliefs,  and  incorporated  in  institutions. 
Then  how  some  of  them  began  to  lose  their  validity,  and 
became  husks. 

The  Gospel  symbolized  divine  strength,  virtue,  love,  in 
the  life  and  words  and  acts,  the  personality  in  fine,  of 
Christ.  The  vitality  of  that  symbol  Christ  has  not 
passed  away,  because  it  has  not  ceased  to  correspond  with 
human  thoughts  and  yearnings.  But  in  the  centuries  fol- 
lowing the  Crucifixion,  Christ  was  elaborated,  sublimated, 
rendered  metaphysical  In  dogma,  fixed  In  the  larger  sym- 
bol of  the  Trinity.  This  formulation  obliterated  some  of 
the  qualities  which  had  been  very  living  in  the  Gospel 
Christ.  Thereupon  the  needy  human  mind,  as  it  were, 
out  of  the  lost  bits  of  Christ,  made  other  symbols.  Chief 
among  them  was  the  Virgin  Mary,  symbol  of  refuge,  pre- 
serving the  divine  qualities  of  love  and  pity  and  forgive- 
ness that  they  might  not  be  entombed  In  the  metaphysics 
of  the  Triune  God.  Mary  and  the  saints  and  angels 
were  symbols  made  by  the  plastic  mind  In  ansv/er  to  Its 
longings;  symbols  of  realized  assurance,  they  were  held 
in  the  imagination,  seen  In  visions,  even  touched  in  states 
of  rapture.  Yet  with  all  their  loveliness  and  comfort, 
they  tended  to  lose  vitality  as  the  sixteenth  century  ap- 
proached. For  they  no  longer  corresponded  with  men's 
larger  thoughts  of  the  workings  of  the  divine.  They 
had  even  taken  on  corruption,   in   that  they  had  been 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  185 

brought  to  pander  to  what  the  keener  moral  perceptions 
of  the  time  recognized  as  immoralities.^  Soon  they 
would  be  numbered  among  superstitions  by  large  sections 
of  Europe. 

Monasticism  was  the  expression  of  another  Christian 
ideal.  The  celibate  ascetic  life  for  men  and  woman  rep- 
resented the  fear  of  the  devil,  the  horror  of  sin,  the  anx- 
ious detestation  of  the  world  and  the  flesh;  also  a  yearn- 
ing for  purity,  utter  devotion  to  the  Crucified.  Through 
monastic  living  and  mortification  of  the  flesh,  and  abject 
penitence,  ardent  men  and  women  had  reached  assurance 
and  consolation,  even  had  attained  to  union  with  God. 
Monasticism  had  had  a  great  role  in  Christianity;  had 
been  instituted  and  developed,  had  fallen  from  its  high 
estate,  and  had  been  time  and  again  reformed.  Its  re- 
formers and  reinstitutors  —  Benedict,  Damiani,  Ber- 
nard, Guigo,  Francis, —  presented  phases  of  its  ideals: 
their  lives  also  had  become  symbols.  There  was  abun- 
dant monastic  slackness  and  corruption  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  If  that  had  resulted  from  the  sheer  weakness 
of  human  nature  unable  to  adhere  to  an  ideal,  it  might 
have  been  remedied  again  by  strenuous  reformers.  But 
now  monasticism  was  countered  by  a  new  ideal  of  living. 
Not  human  weakness,  but  a  new  and  rationally  supported 
attitude  toward  religion  and  toward  life  opposed  its  prin- 
ciples and  prepared  to  demonstrate  their  invalidity.  If 
the  monastic  ideal  could  not  keep  its  throne  in  the  human 
mind,  its  practice  might  become  hypocrisy  and  its  preten- 
sions be  laughed  out  of  court.  That  also  came  to  pass  in 
parts  of  Europe. 

The  faith  of  Christ  was  dogmatized  in  creeds;  first 
in  the  sim.ple  Apostolic  creed,  and  then  in  the  Nicene  elab- 
oration. Both  creeds  were  symbols,  the  first  represent- 
ing the  youthful  still  impressionable  body  of  Christian  be- 
lief; the  second  presenting  its  rock-ribbed  metaphysical 
conciliar  formulation.  The  Nicene  symbol  became  the 
citadel  of  dogmatic  Christianity,  with  subsidiary  dogmas 
supporting    it    as    buttresses.     The    power    of    patristic 

1  See,  for  example,  the  Colloquies  of  Erasmus,  passim,  ante,  Chap.  VII, 


i86  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Christian  thought  had  built  it.  Through  the  Middle 
Ages  it  stood  sublime,  Intact,  the  Faith's  foregone  con- 
clusion. To  bulwark  this  citadel  was  the  chief  end  of 
scholastic  philosophy.  In  the  fifteenth  century  the  citadel 
showed  no  open  signs  of  weakening.  In  the  sixteenth, 
Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics  professed  to  lock  them- 
selves within  It.  Yet  It  had  long  stood  peak-like  above 
Christian  emotion,  and  now  no  longer  held  or  symbolized 
the  vital  currents  of  Christian  thinking.  The  religious 
storm  swept  by  it,  apparently. 

Yet  the  storm  shattered  the  transubstantiatlon  of  bread 
and  wine,  one  sacramental  buttress,  and  even  disturbed 
the  "  real  presence  "  in  the  Eucharist.  Such  dogmas  were 
not  yet  emptied  symbols,  and  were  fiercely  maintained 
and  contested. 

There  was  a  paramount  symbol  of  the  unity  and  to- 
tality of  the  Christian  salvation,  which  the  storm  con- 
spicuously struck,  and  broke  in  tv\^aln.  That  was  the  im- 
perial Roman  Catholic  Church,  visible,  tangible,  august; 
sacerdotal  mediator  between  God  and  men;  sole  vehicle 
and  ministrant  of  salvation.  Not  that  the  thought,  the 
symbol  Itself,  seemed  to  have  weakened  or  to  have  ceased 
to  correspond  with  living  ideals.  Indeed  the  shattered 
reality  continued  to  furnish  an  ideal  to  those  men  who 
in  fact  had  broken  it.  Lutherans  and  Calvlnists  pro- 
fessed to  belong  to  the  one  true  Church  composed  of  all 
true  believers. 

But  the  concept  of  the  Church  had  never  been  quite 
settled  and  at  one  with  itself.  At  any  given  moment,  it 
had  a  different  form  In  different  minds,  and  It  was  al- 
ways changing.  The  papal  Curia  and  its  priestly  sup- 
porters did  not  hold  the  same  Idea  as  the  laity,  who  paid 
church  tithes  throughout  the  world,  and  the  secular  rulers 
who  might  be  hostile  to  the  pope.  Unlike  the  symbol  of 
the  Trinity  or  that  of  the  Virgin  birth,  the  Church  Idea 
was  Inextricably  Involved  in  practice  and  politics,  bound 
up  in  things  temporal.  In  the  Vv^orld,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil.  The  Church  was  flesh  as  well  as  spirit.  Its  other- 
worldly functions  might. not  have  been  contested,  had  they 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  187 

not  needed  to  support  themselves  on  temporal  power  and 
material  emoluments.  The  concept  of  the  Church  had 
necessarily  to  embody  itself  in  an  institution;  and  institu- 
tions are  of  this  world,  part  of  its  dragging  needs  and 
lowering  practices. 

In  its  temporal  and  material  flesh  the  Church  never 
could  be  free  from  shortcoming  and  corruption;  or  fail 
to  be  involved  in  practices  inconsistent  with  its  other- 
worldly purpose.  Hence  it  never  could  be  void  of  of- 
fense; and  would  always  be  attacked  by  saints  as  well  as 
sinners. 

Moreover,  its  material  corruptions  were  always  low- 
ering its  doctrines  to  correspond  with  its  practices,  and 
de-spiritualizing  its  teachings.  Doubtless,  even  from 
Apostolic  times  unspiritual  superstitions  had  been  ac- 
cepted, like  the  notion,  for  example,  that  the  physical 
thing,  the  relic  or  the  bread  blessed  by  the  priest,  might 
have  a  magic  or  miraculous  effect,  in  no  way  germane 
to  its  actual  properties.  Priests  and  laity  could  free 
themselves  from  such  ideas  only  by  perceiving  more 
clearly  that  a  thing  cannot  produce  something  else  of  an 
entirely  different  nature.  Cause  and  effect  must  lie  in 
the  same  categories :  a  physical  thing  cannot  work  spiritual 
miracles;  a  corporeal  act  cannot  in  itself  produce  a  higher 
spiritual  state.  Both  Erasmus  and  Luther  (not  to  men- 
tion Wyclif)  perceived  this  as  touching  gifts  and  pil- 
grimages and  mortifications  of  the  flesh.  Possibly  some 
such  rational  principle  might  before  their  time  have  been 
accepted  by  the  Church,  had  not  the  needs  of  the  Church 
as  a  temporal  institution  proved  an  obstacle.  Instead, 
irrational  unspiritual  notions,  which  may  have  had  their 
root  in  paganism,  were  retained  through  this  degrading 
Influence,  and  sometimes  were  aggravated.  It  was  the 
plainly  corrupt  and  material  abuse  of  these  derelict  no- 
tions that  aroused  men's  Indignation;  otherwise  the  doc- 
trines themselves  would  have  quietly  fallen  away  or  re- 
mained as  negligible  anachronisms.  Luther's  attack  upon 
Indulgences  and  its  immense  results  afford  the  most  ob- 
vious Illustration,  while  the  futility  of  the  reforming  pur- 


i88  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

poses  of  Erasmus  was  partly  due  to  their  primarily  in- 
tellectual character.  They  demonstrated  the  absurdity 
of  prevalent  Irrationalities  In  doctrines  and  practices,  in- 
stead of  attacking  directly  the  corruptions  which  made 
those  Irrationalities  abominable,  and  were  the  real  rea- 
sons for  overthrowing  them.  His  labors  helped  to  pre- 
pare men's  minds.     The  explosion  came  otherwise. 

The  preparation  for  the  revolt  of  Luther  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  Is  not  to  be  sought  in  specific 
antecedents  which  happen  to  agree  In  form  with  some 
of  the  reformer's  thoughts.  Such  merely  mark  the  mile- 
stones on  the  way.  Luther's  revolt  was  led  up  to  by  the 
intellectual,  economic  and  political  progress  of  Europe 
and,  especially,  of  the  German  people.  As  the  men- 
tality of  Europe  advanced  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  disturbing  glances  were  directed  toward  the 
Church  and  the  kinds  of  salvation  which  It  furnished. 
The  diirerences  between  peoples  became  more  marked, 
and  the  consciousness  of  nationality  stronger.  Europe 
was  progressing  from  homogeneity  to  diversity.  One 
form  of  Christianity,  one  Catholic  Church,  possibly  might 
no  longer  answer  the  spiritual  and  economic  needs  of  all 
the  nations.  At  all  events,  the  deepening  of  the  national 
consciousness  of  Englishmen  and  Germans  carried  some 
distrust  of  a  church  seemingly  rooted  in  an  Italian  papacy 
which  was  always  draining  other  peoples  of  their  gold. 
Such  conditions  moved  the  revolt  of  Wyclif  and  led  to 
the  Hussite  wars. 

Religiously  the  Lutheran  revolt  and  reformation  was 
an  announcement  of  man's  dependence  upon  God  for  his 
salvation,  to  the  necessary  exclusion  of  sacerdotal  media- 
tion: Intellectually  it  implied  insistence  upon  a  revised 
kind  of  mental  freedom;  politically  It  broke  the  unity  of 
ecclesiastical  authority. 

The  Church  was  the  Catholic  exponent  of  Christianity. 
Luther  issued  from  the  Church.  Doctrinally,  he  shook 
himself  free  only  just  so  far  as  he  was  compelled  to  by 
the  need  to  establish  his  salvation  immediately  in  Jesus 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  189 

Christ.  Catholic  church  doctrine  was  exceedingly  inclu- 
sive; suited,  In  Its  various  aspects  or  phases  to  different 
minds  and  different  tempers.  It  was  an  omnium  gath- 
erum of  saving  means  and  doctrines.  Luther's  rejec- 
tion of  certain  of  Its  teachings  w^as  grounded  In  his  more 
absolute  acceptance  of  what  It  also  taught.  Salvation 
by  faith  had  always  been  proclaimed;  yet  the  Church,  as 
a  Catholic  result  of  centuries  of  accretion,  proffered  other 
means  of  grace  for  such  as  needed  other  disciplines. 
There  were  different  kinds  of  Christianity  or  quasi-Chrls- 
tlanlty  within  the  Church,  with  opportunities  for  religious 
conviction  and  practices  ranging  from  the  sublime  to  the 
abject.  Luther,  more  intense,  more  consistent,  more  in- 
dividual, and  more  narrow,  committed  himself  to  certain 
Christian  doctrines  so  absolutely  and  exclusively  that 
others  were  thereby  rejected,  many  of  them  make-shift 
teachings  and  practices  which  human  weakness  demanded, 
and  the  Catholic  nature  of  the  Church  not  only  tolerated 
but,  as  it  were,  personally  felt  the  need  of. 

Before  Luther,  there  were  men  who  accepted  the  same 
vital  doctrines  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  them  also  to  reject 
much  that  he  rejected.  There  was  one  Johann  von 
Goch,  a  Low  German  or  Netherlander,  who  died  in 
1475,  having  made  little  stir,  and  leaving  writings  which 
were  not  read  by  Luther,  but  were  unearthed  In  later 
times.  Goch  held  with  inchoate  pre-Lutheran  insistence, 
upon  certain  of  the  doctrines  which  the  Church  so  cath- 
olicly  gathered  together,  along  with  some  Ill-sorted  prac- 
tices. He  emphasized  justification  by  faith,  and  held  that 
the  Faith  should  be  based  upon  Scripture,  and  that  the 
Sacrament  did  not  save  when  taken  by  the  unrepentant. 
He  also  held  that  the  Church  might  err,  which  the  church 
knew  well  enou,s:h,  but  could  not  formally  admit.  An- 
other Johann,  Joannes  de  Vesalla,  or  WeseL  wrote 
against  the  papal  indulgences  issued  at  the  pope's  Jubilee 
of  14CO.  He  maintained  that  the  pope  could  not  ab- 
solve from  divine  punishment,  and  other  things  besides, 
which  Luther  was  to  hold. 

A  more  notable  figure  is  still  another  Johann,  this  time 


190  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

a  Johann  Wessel  spelled  with  double  s,  and  if  possible 
not  to  be  confused  with  his  older  contemporary,  Wesel. 
Wessel,  who  lived  from  1420  to  1490,  had  been  taught 
by  Thomas  a  Kempis,  his  senior  by  forty  years,  and  is 
even  thought  to  have  influenced  his  teacher.  He  early 
inclined  toward  Plato,  and  may  have  known  a  little  Greek. 
He  studied  for  many  years  in  Paris,  and  spent  some  time 
in  Rome.  When  sixty  years  old,  he  settled  down  at 
Heidelberg  three  years  before  Luther  was  born. 

Wessel  held  so  many  of  the  doctrines  which  Luther  was 
to  hold,  that  the  latter's  enemies  reproached  him  with 
wholesale  borrowing.  Luther  recognized  him  as  a  fore- 
runner, and  Erasmus  also  spoke  well  of  him.  He  sought 
to  base  his  theology  directly  on  the  Bible,  and  endeavored 
to  hold  to  the  real  meaning  of  its  words.  He  stated  the 
principle  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  and  developed  the 
idea  of  faith  as  the  source  of  man's  communion  with 
God.  Then  he  followed  St.  John  in  the  conception  of 
love,  of  God's  love  of  man  and  man's  answering  love  of 
God.  Love  nourishes  love,  and  without  it  there  is  no 
life.  Love  is  perfected  in  us  through  the  spirit  of  God, 
till  we  are  brought  where  man  and  angel  pass  away,  and 
we  become  a  new  creature  in  Christ.  The  Church  is  the 
communion  of  all  the  Saints,  living  and  dead.  Its  bond 
is  love.  We  have  faith  in  the  Gospel  through  God;  and 
faith  in  the  Church  through  the  Gospel.  The  reverse  is 
untrue. 

Wessel  approaches  Luther's  conception  of  the  priest- 
hood. For  him  the  pope  is  not  infallible;  his  headship 
is  an  accident.  The  saving  effect  of  the  Sacrament  de- 
pends on  the  spiritual  state  of  the  recipient.  Wessel's 
conception  of  the  Eucharist  was  less  conservative  than 
Luther's;  it  was  like  that  of  Zwingli,  and  appears  to  have 
influenced  the  radical  Carlstadt.  He  questioned  the 
Catholic  doctrines  of  penance  and  priestly  remission  of 
sins.  Christ  did  not  entrust  the  power  to  remit  sins  to 
any  one  person,  but  to  the  unity. — ''  non  uni  sed  unitati 
donavit."  The  pope  cannot  exclude  man  from  the  grace 
and  love  of  God,  nor  enhance  the  believer's  spiritual  bene- 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  191 

fits.  Wessel  argued  against  indulgences,  advancing,  as 
it  were,  from  the  position  of  Wesel  even  beyond  the 
points  taken  by  Luther's  Theses.  Consistently  with  these 
ideas,  he  treats  Purgatory  as  a  stage  of  purification  mid- 
way between  human  sinfulness  and  heavenly  perfection. 
The  purgatorial  fire  Is  spiritual;  It  Is  God  himself,  and 
Christ  and  the  Gospel,  working  in  love  —  an  element 
not  absent  from  Dante's  Purgatory.^ 

In  spite  of  the  correspondence  of  their  thoughts  with 
Luther's  own,  these  men  affected  him  less  than  certain  con- 
templative pietists,  mystics  as  they  commonly  are  called, 
whose  ways  of  thinking  were  part  of  Luther's  very  Ger- 
man religious  nature.  They  also  were  Germans  or  Low- 
landers  by  birth.  Melster  Eckhart  was  the  most  crea- 
tive genius  among  them,  Indeed,  the  creative  type  of  much 
that  was  German  and  of  much  that  became  Luther.  For 
this  reason  a  few  pages  must  be  devoted  to  his  pro- 
found obscurity. 

Mysticism  Is  a  vague  name  for  much  that  Is  amorphous. 
Along  the  Rhine  and  in  the  Low  Countries,  a  directly 
yearning  and  contemplative  piety  had  marked  the  Broth- 
ers of  the  Free  Spirit  and  the  partly  kindred  evangelical 
Beghards  and  Begulnes,  societies  of  men  and  women  who 
had  never  been  high  in  the  Church's  favor  and  were  even- 
tually to  be  treated  as  heretics.  But  Mary  of  Ognles, 
Elizabeth  of  Schonau,  Hlldegarde  of  BIngen,  had  been 
saints  of  the  Church  in  the  twelfth  century,  and,  in  the 
next,  with  Mechthilde  of  Magdeburg,  the  religious  Im- 
pulse had  become  a  personally  addressed  symbolic  and 
sense  passion.^  In  their  religious  experience  there  had 
been  scant  admixture  of  justifying  reason;  but  warm  had 
been  their  zeal  for  the  honor  of  God  and  for  the  purifi- 
cation of  His  Church.  Then  had  come  Melster  Eckhart, 
who  was  born  In  Thuringia  In  1260  and  died  in  1327.* 
His  learning  and  genius  made  a  frame  for  his  religious 

2  On  Wessel,  see  Ullmann,  Reformatoren  vor  der  Reformation,  II,  pp. 
486-514    (Gotha,  1866). 

3  See  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Chapter  XX. 

4  On  Eckhart,  see  Delacroix,  Mysticisme  speculatif  en  Allemagne  au  14. 
siecle  (Paris,  1900). 


192  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

impulses,  and  brought  the  difficult  content  of  his  thought 
to  striking  expression  in  vital  paradox  and  symbolism. 

He  was  a  Dominican  and  held  high  office  in  his  Order. 
He  was  likewise  a  Doctor  of  Theology,  versed  in  the 
teachings  of  Aquinas,  and  in  the  writings  of  the  Arab 
commentators  of  Aristotle.  He  also  had  studied  Augus- 
tine ,  but  seemingly  knew  best  of  all  the  pseudo-Dionysius, 
the  "  Areopagite."  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Eckhart's 
full  scholastic  equipment,  which  is  evinced  by  his  Latin 
treatises  and  to  a  less  degree  by  his  German  utterances. 

These  sermons  and  other  German  tracts  of  Eckhart 
disclose  a  vigorous  ethical  nature  and  tense  thought,  which 
they  must  also  have  demanded  of  their  auditors.  The 
Master  was  a  severe  thinker.  Further,  he  was  a  specula- 
tive spirit,  whose  whole  being  drew  toward  God,  one 
might  even  say  toward  the  ultimate  universal  reality. 
Rather  than  a  scholastic,  he  was  a  masterful  personality 
moulding  what  he  had  received  into  what  he  was  and 
would  be  and  attain  to.  Wherein  lay  the  chief  emphasis 
of  his  thought  and  mood  may  not  be  easy  for  other  men 
to  state. 

At  all  events  Eckhart's  teaching  had  to  do  with  God 
and  the  Soul,  or  with  the  ultimate  reality  whereinsoever 
that  be  found.  One  may  also  be  sure  that  its  rational 
structure  was  but  a  vehicle  of  the  man's  desire  and  in- 
tent, at  least  if  allov/ance  be  made  for  the  necessary  at- 
tachment of  a  Dominican  Doctor  to  the  scholasticism  rep- 
resented by  his  Order.  Shall  we  say,  the  goal  both  of 
desire  and  of  the  thought  which  justifies  it  is  the  soul's 
oneness  with  God?  The  soul  is  of  the  divine  essence; 
may  the  completed  soul,  conscious  of  its  nature  and  over- 
nature,  so  perfect  this  union  as  to  convert  the  Divine 
from  object  to  an  inner  experience?  Even  God  brings  his 
being  to  its  full  actuality  and  consciousness  through  com- 
ing to  expression  in  the  beings  He  creates  and  remains 
the  essence  of.  Conversely,  the  true  life  of  the  soul  lies 
in  its  turning,  or  perhaps  returning,  utterly  to  God, 
abandoning  its  worse  than  worthless  distractions,  com- 
forts, pleasures.     It  may  profitably  exercise  this  ascetic 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  193 

rejection  and  mortal  humiliation  In  order  to  attain  its 
true  homing  In  That  which  Is  Its  source  and  final  blessed- 
ness. God,  by  passing  out  into  His  veriest  actuality,  be- 
comes the  true  reality  of  that  which  He  creates;  and  by 
knowing  this,  and  living  in  accord  with  it,  the  human 
creature  helps  God  to  fulfil  His  realization  of  Himself, 
till  God  be  All  in  All.  In  this  perfected  absorption 
which  is  re-absorption,  the  Soul  attains  Its  heights  of  love 
and  inner  contemplation,  which  is  its  bliss  and  Its  sal- 
vation. 

Of  this,  Christ  was  and  is  the  absolute  example  and 
realization. 

"  Says  our  Lord,  *  I  am  gone  forth  from  the  Father  and  am 
come  into  the  world.  Again  I  leave  the  world  and  return  to  the 
Father.'  Here  he  means  that  his  coming  forth  is  his  entry  Into 
the  soul.  But  the  soul's  entr\^  is  her  coming  forth :  she  must  pass 
out  of  her  outermost  into  her  innermost,  out  of  her  own  into  the 
Son's  own.  Thereupon  she  is  drawn  into  the  Father  as  the  Son 
leaves  the  world  and  returns  to  the  Father  with  the  Soul."  But 
the  Son  is  God,  and  his  coming  forth  is  very  God:  "  His  coming 
forth  is  his  entry.  Even  as  he  comes  forth  from  the  Father,  in  the 
same  way  he  enters  the  Soul.     His  coming  forth  is  God  Himself/'  ^ 

So  creation  Is  God's  pouring  forth  of  Himself.  This 
is  the  old  Emanatio  of  Gnostic  and  Neo-platonlst,  dear 
forever  to  the  German  mind.  One  may  try  to  follow 
Eckhart  as  he  brings  similar  thoughts  to  expression  in 
another  discourse  —  on  seeing  and  contemplating  God 
through  the  "  wurckende  vernunft,"  creative  reason,  the 
vov?  TroiTyrtKo?  of  the  ''  Arcopagltc  "  and  of  Aristotle  too. 
"  King  David  said,  Lord  In  thy  light  shall  we  see  light. 
.  .  .  Man  has  within  him  a  light,  that  is  the  creative  rea- 
son; in  this  light  shall  he  see  God  In  blessedness.  Man 
is  created  so  Imperfect  that  he  cannot  through  his  nature 
know  God  as  creator  and  as  type  and  form.  For  this  a 
power  above  his  nature  is  needed,  the  light  of  grace. 
Now  mark  my  meaning.  Saint  Paul  says,  through  the 
grace  of  God  I  am  that  I  am.     He  does  not  say  that  he 

5  From  a  sermon  on  John  XVI,  28  (Pfeiffer,  Deutsche  Mystiker,  2,  181. 
Printed  in  Vetter,  Lehrhafte  Litteratur  des  14.  u.  15  Jahrhundert,  p.  159). 


194  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

exists  through  grace.  The  difference  is  between  being  by 
grace  and  being  [the  true]  self  by  grace.  The  masters 
say  that  true  form  gives  being  to  matter.  Now  there  is 
much  talk  among  them  as  to  what  grace  is.  I  say  that 
grace  is  nothing  else  than  a  light  flowing  ^  immediately 
out  of  the  nature  of  God  into  the  Soul,  and  it  is  an  over- 
natural  form  of  the  soul  that  gives  it  an  over-natural 
being."  ' 

So  grace  imparts  a  being  to  the  soul  exceeding  the 
soul's  nature.  Without  it  the  soul  cannot,  beyond  her 
own  nature,  understand  and  love.  "  When  the  soul  is 
steadfast  in  an  overcoming  of  herself  and  passes  into  a 
not-herself  ^  then  is  she  through  grace.  .  .  .  This  is  the 
highest  office  of  grace  that  it  brings  the  soul  to  the  true 
self  (das  sie  die  sele  bringet  in  das  sie  selb  [not  fr-selb] 
ist).  Grace  robs  the  soul  of  her  own  works  (ir  eygen 
werck),  grace  robs  the  soul  of  her  own  existence.   .   .   ." 

"The  worthy  Dionysius  [the  "  Areopagite  "]  says: 
'  when  God  is  not  in  the  soul,  the  eternal  image  is  not  in 
the  soul,  which  is  her  eternal  source."  God  keeps  this 
eternal  image  in  the  soul  through  his  grace,  or  light,  or 
"  wurckende  vernunft."  In  this  the  soul  is  raised  out  of 
her  natural  being,  which  had  kept  her  subject  to  her  own 
desires  that  draw  away  from  God.  And  in  this  trans- 
forming of  the  soul,  God  is  very  God:  "  In  my  eternal 
bild  is  God  God."  « 

The  structural  thought  of  German  mysticism  is  due  to 
Eckhart.  As  has  been  often  said,  this  German  mysticism 
was  a  very  inward  business.  It  was  a  power  within  each 
man  and  woman  which  might  exert  itself  individually  and 
Germanically,  in  the  end  most  separatistically,  one  may 
say.     One  seems  also  to  perceive  in  this  German  mysti- 

6  With  Eckhart's  "  ein  fllessendes  liecht,"  we  are  back  with  Mechthilde 
of  Macrdebiirp:  and  her  "  fliessendes  liecht  der  Gottheit " — see  T/ie  Medi- 
aeval Mind,  Chap.  XX. 

'^  Observe  how  Eckhart  uses  the  concepts  of  the  dominant  Aristotelianism 
of  his  Order. 

^.  .  .  stet  in  einem  uberschwang- ir  selbers  und  in  ein  nicht  ir  selbers 
geit.  .  .  . 

8  The  above  is  translated  from  the  "  Traktat  von  dem  Schauen  Gottes 
durch  die  wirkende  Vernunft "  in  H.  Hildebrand's  Didaktik  aiis  der  Zeit 
der  Kreuzziige,  pp.  38  sqq.  {Deutsche  Nat.  Lit.). 


'     '  PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  195 

cism,  as  In  other  things  Germanic,  the  absence  of  the  orig- 
inal discipline,  subjection,  if  one  will,  to  form  and  order, 
which  the  Roman  domination  imposed  upon  the  peoples 
of  the  "  Latin  "  countries. 

Eckhart  was  followed  by  Ruysbroeck,  Suso,  Tauler,  ex- 
cellent contemplators  all,  diffusers  and  preachers  of  his 
thoughts.  There  is  no  need  to  investigate  Luther's  par- 
ticular indebtedness  to  each;  for  the  thoughts  of  one  and 
all  seem  to  converge  in  a  small  pregnant  volume,  com- 
posed toward  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  which 
Luther  published  and  named  Theologia  Deiitsch}^ 
Deutsch  it  was  unquestionably,  and  adapted  altogether 
to  the  German  temperament,  and  not  to  French  reform- 
ers, who  never  liked  it.  Luther  said  in  his  preface  that 
he  had  not  learned  more  about  God,  Christ,  man  and  all 
things,  from  any  other  book  except  the  Bible  and  St. 
Augustine.  Theologia  Deutsch  at  all  events  discloses 
the  contemplative  religious  elements  directly  entering  the 
German  Reformation. 

It  opens  with  Paul's  "  when  that  which  is  perfect  is 
come,  that  which  Is  In  part  shall  be  done  away."  The 
perfect  Is  God;  the  "  in  part  "  (getellte)  is  the  self,  the 
creature;  and  the  perfect  comes  as  the  creature  puts  itself 
away.  Sin  is  nothing  else  than  the  turning  of  the  crea- 
ture from  the  unchanging  good  to  the  changeable,  that 
is,  to  the  Imperfect  and  "  In  part,"  and  worst  of  all  to 
itself.  This  is  what  the  devli  did  when  he  would  be 
something.     Adam's  fall  was  a  turning  from  God. 

How  shall  there  be  a  restoration?  Man  can  do  noth- 
ing without  God,  and  God  would  do  nothing  without 
man.  So  God  took  on  manhood  and  was  made  man, 
and  man  thereby  was  made  divine  (vergottet).  Hence 
I,  that  Is,  each  one  of  us,  can  do  nothing  without  God, 
and  God  will  do  nothing  without  me.  God  must  be  made 
man  (vermenscht)  in  me,  so  that  He  may  take  on  him- 
self all  that  Is  in  me,  until  there  Is  nothing  of  me  left 

1^  Luther  found  the  book  in  1516,  and  published  it;  but  gave  it  this 
name  only  in  his  completed  edition  of  1518.  It  has  frequently  been  edited. 
I  have  used  the  edition  of  Mandel,  in  Quellenschriften  zur  Ges.  des 
Protestantismus  (Leipzig  1908). 


196  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

that  striv^es  against  Him.  The  Incarnation  would  not 
help  me  unless  God  became  man  In  me.  All  good  and 
righteousness,  yea  God  himself,  cannot  help  me  while 
remaining  without  my  soul.  Eternal  blessedness  lies  in 
our  own  soul  alone.^^ 

And  in  this  renewal  and  bettering  of  myself,  I  do 
nothing  but  suffer  it  to  be  done.  God  works  it  all;  I 
merely  suffer  His  will  to  be  done  in  me.  I  hinder  God 
by  willing  what  is  me  and  mine.  Yet  we  do  not  become 
loveless,  will-less,  and  without  knowledge  or  perception. 
Rather  these  faculties  in  us  become  divine,  and  part  of 
the  eternal  will  and  knowledge.  The  more  we  make 
surrender  of  them,  the  more  perfect  they  become  in  us. 
As  Christ's  soul  went  into  hell  before  rising  to  heaven, 
so  must  the  soul  of  man.  By  realizing  its  own  vileness, 
it  makes  the  more  complete  surrender  to  God. 

There  is  purification,  by  repentance  and  renunciation; 
there  is  enlightenment,  and  then  union  with  God.  If 
one  could  renounce  oneself  and  perfectly  obey,  he  would 
be  free  from  sin  as  Christ  was.  Man  is  good,  better,  or 
best,  or  the  reverse,  as  he  is  obedient  or  disobedient.  So 
the  more  there  is  of  self-ness  and  me-ness,  the  more  sin; 
and  the  less  of  me,  the  more  of  God.^^ 

Further  on  it  Is  said:  "  Let  no  one  think  he  can  at- 
tain true  knowledge,  or  reach  the  life  of  Christ,  through 
many  questions,  or  by  hearing  or  reading  or  study;  nor 
through  great  skill  and  cunning,  nor  through  the  highest 
natural  reason."  Follow  Christ  In  poorness  and  meek- 
ness of  spirit.  In  the  union  of  God,  the  inner  man  abides 
moveless,  while  the  outer  man  may  be  tossed  hither  and 
thlther.13 

Our  extracts  have  brought  us  to  the  middle  of  the 
book,  which  here  enters  upon  a  metaphysical  discussion 
of   the   Absolute    Godhead   and    the   conscious   working 

11  I  have  changed  the  position  of  the  last  sentence.  These  and  the  fol- 
lowing passages  have  much  that  became  part  of  Luther.  One  recalls 
that  in  the  old  pagan  Mysteries  the  votary  becomes  one  with  the  god. 

12  Here  Luther  wrote  on  the  margin:  Quanto  decrescit  ego  hominis, 
tanto  crescit  in  eis  Ego  divinum. 

1^  These  sentences,  as  most  of  the  rest  when  not  in  quotation  marks, 
are  condensed,   rather  than  literally  translated. 


:PRe?aration  for  luther  195^ 

God,  recalling  the  metaphysical  side  of  Eckhart.  After 
beating  this  upper  air  for  a  while,  the  Theologia  Deutsch 
returns  to  our  level  with  the  statement  that  God  does  not 
compel  anyone  to  do  or  refrain,  but  suffers  each  man  to 
act  after  his  wnll,  be  It  good  or  bad.  God  will  withstand 
no  one,  as  Christ  bade  Peter  put  up  his  sword.  "  More- 
over one  shall  note  that  God's  commands  and  His  en- 
lightenment are  addressed  to  the  Inner  man  united  with 
God.  And  when  that  takes  place,  the  outer  man  Is 
taught  and  directed  by  the  Inner  man,  and  needs  no  outer 
law  or  teaching." 

The  book  lays  stress  upon  the  distinction,  dear  to  these 
German  contemplators,  between  the  two  lights,  the  false 
and  the  true,  the  divine  and  the  natural. 

"  The  true  light  Is  God  or  divine,  the  false  light  is  nature  or 
natural.  It  belongs  to  God  to  be  neither  this  or  that,  nor  to  will 
this  or  that,  nor  to  seek  what  is  particular  and  individual  in  the 
man  that  is  made  divine,  but  only  the  good  as  such.  So  it  is  with 
the  true  light.  But  it  pertains  to  the  creature  and  to  nature  to  be 
something  particular,  and  to  signify  and  desire  this  and  that,  and 
not  simply  to  desire  what  is  good,  and  desire  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
good,  but  for  the  sake  of  something  that  is  this  or  that.  And  as 
God  and  the  true  light  are  without  me-ness  and  self-ness,  and  seek 
not  their  own,  so  what  is  me  and  mine,  and  seeks  itself  and  its  own 
in  all  things,  rather  than  the  good  as  good,  belongs  to  nature  and 
to  the  false  natural  light." 

It  Is  false,  and  belongs  to  the  false  light,  for  man  to 
think  to  be  as  the  Godhead,  unmoved,  suffering  nothing 
and  possessing  all.  He  must  not  think  to  transcend  the 
incarnate  life  of  Christ  on  earth.  So  It  pertains  to  the 
false  light  to  lift  human  action  above  the  sphere  of  the 
moral  conscience,  and  think  whatever  it  may  do  is  well. 
The  false  light  curses  everything  that  goes  against  na- 
ture and  Is  hard  for  man  to  do.  "  In  fine,  where  the  true 
light  is,  there  Is  a  true  and  righteous  life,  that  is  pleasing 
and  dear  to  God.  And  if  it  is  not  the  Christllfe  utterly, 
it  still  is  patterned  on  the  Christllfe  and  holds  it  dear. 
To  the  Christllfe  belong  honesty,  order  and  all  the  vir- 
tues; it  seeks  not  its  own,  but  only  the  good,  and  for 


198  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

goodness's  sake.  But  where  the  false  light  Is,  man  is 
careless  of  Christ  and  all  the  virtues,  and  cares  only  for 
what  is  pleasing  to  nature."  The  false  light  loves  to 
know  too  much  and  too  many  things,  and  glories  In  its 
knowledge. 

So  one  shall  not  love  himself,  but  the  good.  Even 
God  does  not  love  himself  as  self,  and  would  have  greater 
love  for  something  better,  did  it  exist.  All  self-love  and 
self-will  is  sin.  He  who  knows  the  Christlife,  knows 
Christ;  he  believes  In  Christ  who  believes  his  life  Is  the 
best;  so  much  of  the  Christlife  as  there  Is  in  man,  so 
much  Christ  Is  in  him.  Where  the  Christlife  is,  there 
Is  Christ;  and  where  it  Is  not,  Christ  Is  not. 

Reason  and  will  are  the  noblest  in  man;  but  let  him 
know  that  they  are  not  from  himself.  The  eternal  will 
In  Its  origin  and  essence  Is  in  God;  moveless  and  unwork- 
Ing  in  Him,  It  works  and  wills  In  the  creature's  created 
Avill.  Let  the  creature  not  will  as  of  himself,  but  as 
If  his  will  were  part  of  God's  will.  The  devil  came  and 
Adam,  who  Is  nature,  and  sought  to  turn  the  divine  will 
In  man  Into  self-will.  The  noble  freedom  of  the  will  Is 
to  work  as  God's  will;  whatever  makes  It  self-will,  robs  It 
of  this  noble  freedom.  And  the  freer  the  will  Is  In  this 
divine  freedom,  the  more  repugnant  Is  evil  to  it,  as  It  was 
utterly  repugnant  to  Christ.  In  the  Kingdom  of  heaven, 
there  is  no  own;  and  anyone  there  seeking  his  own  would 
go  to  hell,  and  anyone  In  hell  who  Is  without  self-will 
rises  to  heaven.  Man  on  earth  Is  between  heaven  and 
hell,  and  may  turn  to  the  one  or  the  other.  By  giving 
up  self-will,  one  comes  to  Christ,  and  through  Christ  to 
the  Father,  that  Is,  to  the  perfect  single  Good  which  Is 
all  In  all,  and  In  which  there  Is  no  creaturehood  or  this 
and  that.  Disclosure  of  the  perfect  good  draws  the 
soul  to  It;  and  thus  the  Father  draws  men  to  Christ. 
And  no  one  comes  to  the  Father  save  through  Christ, 
which  is  through  his  life,  as  has  been  shown.  Thus  more 
than  once  the  book  brings  human  life  and  thinking  back 
to  Christ  and  to  the  Christ  pattern. 

The  Theologia  Deutsch  contains  much  that  passed  Into 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  199 

Luther,  much  also  that  devout  souls  have  clung  to  even 
to  our  day.  It  says  nothing  about  indulgences,  or  popes 
or  the  sacerdotal  functions  of  the  priesthood.  Yet  it 
annihilated  them  all.  For  it  presented  a  religion  in 
which  they  had  no  place. 

The  greatest  of  all  Luther's  forerunners,  John  Wyclif, 
has  not  yet  been  mentioned.  He  was  universally  recog- 
nized as  an  arch-heretic,  which  he  certainly  was  from  any 
Roman  Catholic  point  of  view.  There  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  Luther  read  any  of  his  writings,  either  in 
the  formative  period  preceding  the  posting  of  the  Theses 
against  Indulgences  or  afterwards.  John  Huss,  how- 
ever, drew  his  doctrines  from  the  Englishman.  Luther 
appears  to  have  read  nothing  of  Huss,  likewise  a  uni- 
versally recognized  heretic,  before  the  time  of  his  Leipzig 
disputation  with  Eck,  in  the  summer  of  15 19,  when  he 
was  accused  of  holding  certain  views  of  that  schismatical 
and  heretical  Bohemian.  Soon  afterwards  he  received 
warm  letters  from  Bohemia,  with  a  book  written  by 
Huss;^^  and  not  long  after  he  declared  in  an  argumenta- 
tive letter  to  Eck,  that  he  found  himself  holding  more 
tenets  of  Huss  than  he  had  held  to  at  Leipzig.^^  Indeed 
he  had  "  unconsciously  held  and  taught  all  the  doctrines 
of  John  Huss.  .  .  .  We  are  all  Hussites  without  know- 
ing it." 

If  Luther  was  a  Hussite  without  having  been  taught  of 
Huss  directly,  he  was  a  Wycliflte  by  the  same  token. 
Wyclif  did  not  seize  upon  the  Pauline  justification  by 
faith,  and  make  It  the  all  in  all  of  Christianity,  as  Luther 
did.  But  in  other  respects  the  doctrines  of  the  two  men 
ran  parallel,  and  also  the  circumstances  of  their  lives. 
They  both  were  nationalists  or  patriots,  revolting  against 
the  abuses  of  a  foreign  papal  church;  and  both  of  them 
as  champions  of  their  people  won  such  popular  support 
that  they  could  defy  papal  bulls  launched  against  them. 
Both  took  the  same  stand  as  to  papal  excommunications 

1*  Letter  to  Staupitz,  Oct.,  1530,  De  Wette's  edition  of  Luther's  letters,  L 
p.  341. 

15  Nov.,  1530,  De  Wette,  I.  p.  356.  , 


200  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  interdicts;  both  assailed  the  pope  as  Anti-Christ 
and  both  held  (though  Luther  only  for  a  time)  a  con- 
ception of  the  Church  as  the  Community  of  all  the  saints 
of  God  alive  and  dead.  They  were  both  active  in  af- 
fairs, working  under  a  dominant  impulse  to  destroy  re- 
ligious abuses;  and  both  had  the  power  of  wrath  as  well 
as  the  power  of  speech.  They  both  attacked  papal  indul- 
gences and  absolution,  pilgrimages  and  the  worship  of 
relics;  they  both  denounced  the  notion  of  the  funded 
supererogatory  merits  of  the  saints  making  a  treasury 
from  which  popes  drew  and  distributed  for  value  re- 
ceived. Both  were  hostile  to  the  monks,  and  deemed 
their  vows  unsanctioned  by  Scripture;  both  thought  that 
priests  should  marry.  Both  assaulted  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation,  Wyclif  being  the  less  conservative  of 
the  two;  but  on  the  other  hand,  Luther  threw  off  the 
scholastic  form  in  his  writings  more  completely  than 
Wyclif,  who  never  rid  himself  of  it  when  writing  in 
Latin,  but  only  when  writing  English.  Both  of  them 
translated  the  Bible,  or  parts  of  it,  into  their  native 
tongue,  held  Scripture  to  be  the  sole  authority  in  re- 
ligion, and  denounced  whatever  w^ent  beyond  it  as  un- 
sanctioned and  erroneous. ^^  In  expounding  Scripture, 
both  sought  the  actual  meaning,  and  made  temperate  use 
of  allegorical  interpretation.  With  both  of  them,  their 
religious  doctrines  were  of  gradual  growth:  they  were 
progressive  in  their  "  heresies."  But  unwarranted  ap- 
plication of  their  teachings  and  peasant  wars  tended  to 
make  them  conservative  socially  and  politically  in  the 
end.i^ 

Regarded  from  the  standpoint  of  Church  politics,  the 
sixteenth  century  followed  the  period  of  the  complete  de- 
feat of  the  so-called  Conciliar  Movement.     The  fifteenth 

iG  Wyclif's  older  contemporary  Occam  declares  that  popes  and  councils 
may  err,  and  that  Scripture  only  is  infallible:  ergo  Christianus  de  necessi- 
tate salutis  non  tenetur  ad  credendiim  nee  credere  quod  nee  in  Biblia 
continetur  nee  ex  solis  contentis  in  Biblia  potest  consequentia  necessaria  et 
manifesta  inferri.  See  Seeberg,  in  Protcstantische  Encyclopaedie,  article 
on  Occam,  p.  271. 

IT  \Vyclif  will  be  spoken  of  more  particularly  in  Chap.  XIX- 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  201 

had  opened  with  the  Church  and  papacy  struggling  out 
of  the  Great  Schism,  consequent  upon  the  return  of  the 
popes  from  Avignon.  Distinguished  statesmen  of  the 
Church,  the  Frenchmen  Gerson  and  D'Ailly,  and  after 
them  the  German  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  not  to  mention 
Gregor  Heimburg,  sought  to  subject  the  pope  to  the  con- 
trol of  councils  representative  of  the  catholic  nations. 
It  was  a  time  when  councils  deposed  popes  and  attempted 
Church  reforms.  There  was  the  Council  of  Pisa  in  1409, 
and  the  great  Council  of  Constance  from  14 14  to  141 8. 
Finally  came  the  Council  of  Basel,  which  dragged  out  its 
existence  from  143 1  to  1449.  Its  preposterous  conduct, 
corruption,  and  palpable  impotence  abashed  Nicholas  of 
Cusa  and  other  honest  supporters  of  conciliar  authority. 
Aided  by  international  jealousy  and  the  impossibility  of 
concord  among  the  churchmen  of  Spain,  England,  France 
and  Germany,  papal  diplomacy  triumphed.  It  had 
played  off  interest  against  interest,  order  against  order, 
nation  against  nation.  The  threat  of  a  general  council 
might  still  be  used  to  worry  popes;  but  the  politico-ec- 
clesiastical incompetence  of  councils  had  been  demon- 
strated. The  Church  was  again  a  monarchy,  governed 
by  a  papal  Curia  which  was  becoming  completely  Italian. 
Never  had  the  papacy  been  so  glaringly  and  flauntingly 
secular  as  under  an  Alexander  VI.,  a  Juhus  II.,  or  a  Leo 
X.  The  effect  of  their  reigns  was  to  aggravate  the  mam- 
mon in  the  Church  at  large.  The  Church  smacked  always 
of  this  world;  had  at  least  its  feet  of  clay.  It  existed  on 
the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  was  at  any  epoch  an  ex- 
ponent and  expression  of  the  time  —  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, or  in  the  twelfth,  as  well  as  in  the  fifteenth.  In  the 
early  Middle  Ages  it  became  part  of  the  feudal  system 
so  far  as  concerned  its  tenor  and  occupancy  of  land  and 
the  performance  of  its  landed  functions.  Abbots  and 
bishops  held  feudal  rank,  and  usually  were  scions  of  noble 
or  princely  houses.  This  general  condition  of  the 
Church  did  not  pass  with  the  Middle  Ages.  In  Germany 
at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  higher  ranks  of 
the  German  clergy  were  filled  with  the  son?  of  the  no- 


202  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

blllty  and  the  great  benefices  were  held  by  princes.^® 
Such  a  condition  might  prove  fuel  for  peasant  uprisings, 
but  could  not,  like  papal  exactions,  Incite  Germans  to  re- 
volt against  a  foreign  papal  Church. 

Before  men  revolt,  they  must  distinguish  and  separate 
from  themselves  what  they  would  revolt  against.  Every- 
where the  mediaeval  clergy,  with  their  practices  and 
privileges,  made  part  of  the  social  structure  of  the  coun- 
try. If  they  enjoyed  exemptions  and  exclusive  rights,  so 
did  the  nobles,  so  did  the  burghers  of  the  towns.  Law 
applying  to  all  men  was  of  slow  and  jealous  growth. 
Special  rights  of  a  locality  or  an  order,  or  even  of  indi- 
viduals, existed  everywhere,  and  when  contested  were 
contested  by  some  other  special  right.  Hence  the  pe- 
culiar privileges  of  the  clergy  did  not  seem  to  separate 
them  from  other  classes  of  society,  whose  rights  were 
likewise  privileges.  Some  monarch  or  potentate,  the 
king  of  France  for  instance,  or  the  king  of  England, 
might  have  his  quarrel  v/ith  the  pope,  and  yet  the  va- 
rious orders  of  his  realm  might  not  feel  themselves  con- 
cerned as  partisans.  Such  an  affair  was  out  of  their 
sphere,  went  on  above  their  heads. 

In  Germany,  however,  the  conflict  over  the  investiture 
of  the  clergy  with  their  lands  and  offices  was  long  and 
bitter.  It  seemed  to  center  In  a  struggle  between  Em- 
perors and  popes,  and  tended  to  rouse  national  antipathy. 
The  German  clergy  took  one  side  or  the  other.  But  the 
struggle  produced  in  the  minds  of  the  nobility  and  princes 
and  their  followers,  a  sense  of  antagonism  to  the  papacy. 
That  seemed  a  foreign  foe,  and  not  the  less  so  when  it 
intervened  in  German  politics.  In  favor  of  one  royal 
candidate  as  against  another.  From  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, German  antipathy  to  Rome  Is  voiced  by  those  great 
German  voices,  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide  and  Freldank, 
whoever  the  latter  was.^^  The  current  comes  down  the 
centuries,  till  It  finds  expression  in  the  effective  violence 
of  an  Ulrlch  von  Hutten. 

18  Jansen,  Ges.  des  deutschen   Volkes.,  Vol.  I,  p.  68i  sqq.    (seventeenth 
edition). 

19  Cf.  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Vol.  I,  Chapter  XXVII. 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  203 

He  was  a  knight;  a  thorny  sprig  of  the  German  no- 
bility. A  hater  of  Rome,  he  became  a  truculent  par- 
tisan of  Luther  on  realizing  that  the  latter  had  defied 
the  pope.  He  cared  not  a  whit  for  dogma  or  doctrine; 
but  hated  the  papal  power  and  the  papal  abominations 
imposed  upon  his  fatherland.  He  fought  with  his  pen, 
though  he  would  have  preferred  fighting  with  the  sword 
against  the  Italian  usurper  and  extortioner. 

If  ever  a  book  had  struck  hard  against  the  temporal 
pretensions  of  the  papacy,  it  was  the  book  of  Lorenzo 
Valla  against  the  forged  "  Donation  of  Constantine.'* 
Erasmus's  admiration  for  Valla,  and  the  political  situa- 
tion, had  brought  this  seventy-year-old  writing  to  men's 
attention;  and  Hutten  published  it  in  15  17,  with  a  preface 
of  his  own  addressed  to  Leo  X.^^  He  never  surpassed 
the  insolent  satire  and  mock  adulation  of  this  dedication. 
It  had  nothing  to  do  with  doctrine,  and  everything  with 
false  papal  usurpations;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
all  Hutten's  attacks  upon  the  papacy.  He  speaks  as  a 
patriot,  as  a  liberty-loving  German,  opposing  alien  tyr- 
anny. Thus  for  example  in  his  Vadiscits^  or  his  Bulla  vet 
Bullacida,  two  violent  invectives  in  the  form  of  dialogues, 
belonging  to  the  year  1520.^^  Likewise  in  his  fierce  dia- 
tribes against  Caracciolo  and  Aleander,  the  papal  legates 
at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  Hutten's  invective  has  nothing  to 
do  with  doctrine:  "You,"  he  cries,  "all  you  Roman 
legates  are  robbers  of  our  people,  betrayers  of  Ger- 
many, destroyers  of  law  and  justice. "^^  He  inveighs  as 
well  against  the  higher  German  clergy:  "  Out  with  ye,  un- 
clean swine,  out  from  the  holy  place,  ye  trucksters;  do  ye 
not  see  that  the  air  of  freedom  blows?"  He  attacks 
even  the  Emperor  Charles  for  bowing  down  before  the 
priests. 

A  somewhat  more  definite  statement  may  be  made  of 
the  papal  abuses  which  bore  Intolerably  upon  Germany 

^0  Hutteni  Opera,  ed,  Boecking,  Vol.  I,  pp.  155-161. 

21  Both  printed  in  Vol.  IV.  of  Boecking's  edition  of  Hutten:  Vadiscus 
d'lalogus  qui  et  Trias  Romana  inscribitur,  pp.  145-268;  Bulla  &c.,  pp. 
309-331. 

22  Opera  Hutteni,  Ed.  Boecking,  Vol.  II,  pp.  12-21. 


204  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

at  this  time.  It  will  be  recalled  how  enormous  was  the 
Church's  share  in  the  landed  property  of  Europe.  The 
Church  is  reported  to  have  owned  a  quarter  of  all  the 
land;  its  revenues  vastly  exceeded  those  of  any  king;  It 
offered  riches  and  power  to  its  bishops,  abbots,  and  the 
rest  of  the  higher  clergy,  making  a  huge  army,  and  all 
exempt  from  the  jurisdiction  of  any  court  except  the  ec- 
clesiastical. Limitations  upon  the  papal  prerogative 
were  uncertain  and  contested.  As  watchful  as  It  was 
elastic,  that  prerogative  was  prompt  to  take  advantage  of 
weakness  on  the  part  of  princes.  In  15  ii,  Julius  II.  ex- 
communicated the  King  and  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  of- 
fered their  little  Kingdom  to  whoever  would  seize  it. 
The  popes  had  always  claimed  the  right  to  grant  king- 
doms and  territories,  to  deprive  rulers  of  their  domains 
and  annul  their  subjects'  allegiance.  The  exercise  of 
papal  prerogatives  forms  a  large  part  of  mediaeval  po- 
litical history.  The  Church  held  a  monopoly  of  salva- 
tion; and  the  popes  found  that  the  keys  of  heaven  and 
hell  were  mighty  levers  to  move  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth.  Diligently  they  worked  them.  Through  the  cen- 
tury preceding  the  revolt  of  Luther,  the  need  felt  by  the 
popes  to  regain  their  power  after  the  Great  Schism  and 
the  attacks  of  councils,  combining  with  the  tendencies  of 
life  and  thought  in  Italy,  went  far  toward  making  the 
papacy  a  sheer  political  Institution.  Its  story  for  that 
century  Is  one  of  effort  to  maintain  and  aggrandize  Its 
power,  and  prevent  those  ecclesiastical  reforms  which 
w^ould  have  weakened  Its  temporal  resources  and  influ- 
ence. 

In  the  later  Middle  Ages,  on  through  the  fourteenth 
and  the  fifteenth  centuries,  Into  the  sixteenth  as  well,  the 
papacy  put  forth  systematic  claims  to  control  the  patron- 
age of  the  universal  Church.  Popular  protests  and  royal 
statutes  were  uncertain  barriers  to  this  sleepless  encroach- 
ment upon  the  rights  of  local  or  national  churches  and  of 
states.  The  papacy  had  abundant  use  for  the  enormously 
lucrative  proceeds  of  this  patronage.  The  expenses  of 
the  Holy  See  were  great.     In  the  time  before  us,   the 


PREPARATION  FOR  LUTHER  205 

lavlshness  of  Leo  X.  led  to  that  indiscreet  and  indecent 
sale  of  indulgences  which  drew  out  Luther's  Theses. 
The  papacy's  extravagance  made  it  a  universal  vendor 
of  privileges  and  offices  within  its  granting,  of  indul- 
gences and  marriage  dispensations,  of  bishoprics  and  car- 
dinalships. 

Tithes  and  annates  from  the  clergy  were  important 
sources  of  papal  revenue.  The  annates,  consisting  of 
about  half  the  annual  value  of  a  benefice,  were  exacted 
upon  a  change  of  the  incumbent.  They  attached  to  every 
ecclesiastical  holding,  from  a  parish  living  of  twenty-five 
florins  value  to  the  most  opulent  archbishoprics.  It  may 
be  added  that  a  good  part  of  these  revenues  were  ab- 
sorbed in  their  collection.  As  fiscal  agents  of  the  papacy, 
the  banking  house  of  the  Fuggers,  at  Augsburg,  is  said 
to  have  retained  one  half. 

Germany  was  a  convenient  mine  for  the  papacy.  Ger- 
man kings  and  emperors  had  interposed  so-called  Prag- 
matic Sanctions  and  Concordats;  but  they  could  not,  like 
the  French  or  English  kings,  enforce  the  observance  of 
them.  And  while  the  German  princes  could  prevent 
abuses  in  their  own  dominions,  they  failed  to  unite  in  a 
protective  antipapal  policy.  Hence  the  resistance  from 
great  personages,  or  from  combinations  of  the  clergy 
and  laity  could  be  effective  only  for  the  time  and  the  oc- 
casion. The  German  grounds  of  complaint  against  the 
papacy,  as  set  forth  by  public  men  or  formulated  by 
synods  of  the  clergy  or  diets  of  the  realm,  have  been 
termed  gravamina.  The  so-called  Centum  gravamina, 
drawn  up  by  the  diet  of  Worms  in  1521,  are  a  summa  of 
what  had  been  stated  from  time  to  time  through  the  pre- 
ceding centuries.  In  substance  they  embrace:  (i) 
Complaints  over  papal  interference  with  elections  to 
bishoprics  and  other  church  offices;  over  the  bestowal  of 
benefices  on  foreip^ners  or  on  unfit  Germans;  and  over 
the  burdens  placed  upon  the  administration  of  the  same. 
(2)  Complaints  over  the  grievous  exactions  for  the  papal 
revenue:  annates  and  tithes  and  other  matters.  (3) 
Complaints   over   the   papal  judicial  procedure,   in   that 


2o6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

causes  which  should  be  decided  in  Germany  were  with- 
drawn to  Rome,  and  there  decided  arbitrarily;  also  over 
exemptions  granted  by  the  Curia  from  the  jurisdiction 
of  German  courts,  both  lay  and  spiritual,  and  over  other 
abuses  of  ecclesiastical  procedure.^^ 

23  See  B.  Gebhardt,  Die  gravamina  der  deutschen  Nation  gegen  den 
romischen  Hof.  (Breslau  1895)  passim,  and  especially  pp.  103-113,  and 
pp.  126  sqq. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MARTIN    LUTHER 

I.     Ferment  and  Explosion 
II.     Luther's  Freeing  of  his  Spirit 
III.    The  Further  Expression  of  the  Man 


The  Centum  Gravamina,  spoken  of  at  the  close  of  the 
last  chapter,  summed  up  the  German  protests  against 
the  papal  church.  They  reflected  Luther's  palpable  at- 
titude toward  the  ecclesiastical,  social,  and  political  situa- 
tion. Pointedly  they  corresponded  with  Luther's  ad- 
dress To  the  Christian  nobility  of  the  German  nation, 
which  had  appeared  six  months  before.^  It  was  one  of 
Luther's  most  effective  writings,  and  if  so,  one  of  the 
most  immediately  effective  ever  written  by  any  man. 
Incisively,  explicitly,  constructively,  it  set  forth  the  ec- 
clesiastical situation,  and  expressed  the  convictions,  preju- 
dices and  antipathies  of  the  nation.  It  brought  sound 
doctrine  and  the  truth  of  God  to  bear  upon  conditions 
grasped  and  presented  by  genius.  A  resume  of  it  will 
disclose  those  conditions  and  abuses  which  had  already 
directed  the  yearnings  and  anxieties  of  Luther's  religious 
nature  into  a  torrent  of  revolt  from  Rome. 

Having  premised  the  necessity  compelling  so  poor  an 
individual  to  address  their  High  Mightinesses,  Luther 
opens  with  a  warning  not  to  rely  on  one's  own  power  or 
wisdom,  but  on  God.  The  Romanists  have  reared  three 
walls  around  them,  defenses  against  reform.  They  are 
these:  First  that  the  temporal  power  has  no  authority 
over  the  spiritual,  but  just  the  contrary;  secondly,  that 
no  one  except  the  pope  may  interpret  the  Scriptures; 
thirdly,  that  only  the  pope  can  call  a  council. 

^  Some  of  Luther's  points  touched  other  grievances  and  in  a  style  unsuited 
to  a  state  paper.     See  Gebhardt,  Gravamina  Sec,  pp.  126-133. 

207 


2o8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  first  wall  Is  overthrown  by  proof  that  the  spiritual 
order  is  not  composed  of  the  pope  alone,  with  his  monks 
and  bishops,  but  by  all  of  us;  for  we  are  all  a  royal  priest- 
hood through  baptism.  Oil  and  tonsure  make  puppet 
idols;  only  baptism  can  make  a  Christian  or  a  priest. 
Humanly  the  choice  of  priests  lies  with  the  Christian 
community.  "  For  no  one  may  take  upon  him- 
self that  which  is  common,  without  the  mandate  of  the 
community.  A  priest  Is  priest  while  he  holds  the  office; 
he  may  be  deposed,  and  then  becomes  peasant  or  burgher 
again.  It  follows  that  there  Is  no  distinction  save  that 
of  office  or  function  betvv^een  laity  and  priests,  between 
princes  and  bishops,  between  '  spiritual '  and  '  temporal  ' 
or  worldly,  as  they  are  called.  For  all  are  members  of 
the  spiritual  order,  and  really  bishops,  priests  and  popes, 
though  they  have  not  the  same  function;  but  neither  has 
every  priest  and  monk." 

Now  just  as  the  "  spiritual  "  are  worthier  than  other 
Christians  only  because  of  their  ministry,  "  so  the  tem- 
poral magistrates  hold  the  sword  and  the  rods  that  they 
may  punish  the  wicked  and  protect  the  just.  A  shoe- 
maker, a  smith,  a  peasant,  has  the  office  of  his  handi- 
work; yet  they  are  consecrated  priests  and  bishops;  and 
everyone  should  be  useful  and  serviceable  to  the  other, 
with  his  work  or  office,  as  all  kinds  of  works  are  directed 
to  serve  the  needs  of  one  community,  body  and  soul." 
It  is  for  the  temporal  authorities  to  aid  and  punish 
priests,  just  as  much  as  It  Is  for  shoemakers  to  make  their 
shoes.  Beyond  their  office,  the  alleged  greater  worth  of 
the  spiritual  order  is  a  human  Invention. 

Think  for  yourselves,  he  bids  his  auditors,  and  recog- 
nize how  preposterous  Is  the  notion  that  only  the  wicked 
pope  may  Interpret  Scripture,  or  call  a  council.  The  ab- 
surdity of  the  last  Idea  grows  as  we  consider  the  matters 
which  councils  properly  may  handle:  to  wit,  the  worldly 
pride  of  the  pope  with  his  three  crowns,  when  the  great- 
est king  Is  content  with  one;  the  plundering  of  Germany 
and  other  countries,  to  find  benefices  for  the  cardinals, 
through  which  the  land  is  wasted  and  the  flock  of  Christ 


MARTIN  LUTHER  209 

deprived  of  Its  pastors;  the  monstrous  papal  court  which 
Germany  helps  to  support  by  sending  three  hundred  thou- 
sand gulden  annually  to  Rome,  and  gets  nothing  in  re- 
turn —  no  wonder  we  are  poor,  but  rather  that  we  have 
not  starved!  "Here  my  complaint  is  not  that  God's 
command  and  Christian  right  is  despised  in  Rome,  for  all 
is  not  so  well  in  the  rest  of  Christendom  that  we  may 
make  this  high  accusation.  Neither  do  I  complain  that 
natural  or  temporal  law  and  reason  are  made  of  no  effect. 
The  trouble  lies  deeper.  I  complain  that  Rome  does  not 
observe  her  own  cunningly  devised  canon  law,  which  in 
itself  is  tyranny,  avarice,  pride,  rather  than  law." 

The  complaints  thus  far  set  forth  were  not  novel. 
Other  men  had  stated  one  or  more  of  them  before  Luther, 
who  now  passes  to  more  specific  grievances.  He  begins 
with  the  Annates,  and  then  points  to  one  abusive  exaction 
after  another  through  which  the  pope  and  his  cardinals 
plunder  Germany.  "  How  long  will  ye,  ye  noble  princes 
and  lords,  leave  your  land  open  to  such  ravening  wolves? 
...  If  Rome  is  not  a  brothel  above  all  other  brothels 
imaginable,  I  know  not  what  a  brothel  is."  There  all 
things  conceivable  and  inconceivable  are  done  for  gold. 
He  refers  briefly  to  other  impositions  —  indulgences,  per- 
mission to  eat  meat  in  Lent;  and  then  proceeds  to  the 
remedies  which  the  temporal  power  or  a  general  council 
should  prescribe.  It  will  be  enlightening  to  follow  his 
points : 

1.  Let  every  prince,  nobleman,  and  city  forbid  and 
abolish  the  annates. 

2.  Let  them  also  see  that  no  more  benefices  pass  to 
the  use  of  Rome. 

3.  Let  an  imperial  edict  prohibit  bishops  and  other  dig- 
nitaries from  going  to  Rome  for  their  installation;  and 
forbid  appeals  to  Rome  in  controversies:  for  now  bishops 
and  archbishops  have  no  real  power,  but  only  the  pope. 

4.  Prohibit  the  carrying  of  civil  suits  to  Rome.  What 
touches  the  temporalities  of  the  clergy  may  be  decided 
before  a  consistory  of  German  prelates;  only  let  them  not 
sell  justice  as  it  Is  sold  at  Rome. 


2IO  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

5.  Abolish  the  papal  reservation  of  benefices  upon  the 
death  of  the  Incumbent;  and  if  Rome  send  an  unrighteous 
ban,  let  It  be  despised,  as  from  a  thief. 

6.  Abolish  casus  reservati,  i.e.  sins  reserved  for  the 
pope  to  absolve  from. 

7.  Let  the  Roman  Curia  abolish  Its  useless  offices  and 
reduce  its  pomp. 

8.  Let  the  bishop  no  longer  take  those  oaths  that  bind 
them  to  the  Curia,  and  let  the  Kaiser  resume  the  right  of 
investiture. 

9.  Let  the  Kaiser  cease  to  abase  himself  by  kissing  the 
pope's  toe;  and  let  the  pope  have  only  the  authority  over 
the  Kaiser  of  a  bishop  who  crowns  and  anoints  him. 

10.  Let  the  pope  surrender  his  claim  to  the  Kingdom  of 
Naples  and  Sicily  and  other  principalities  which  do  not 
belong  to  him. 

11.  Have  done  with  kissing  his  feet;  let  him  ride  or 
walk  and  not  be  borne  by  men,  and  no  longer  receive  the 
sacrament  seated,  from  a  kneeling  cardinal  offering  it  on  a 
golden  salver. 

12.  Let  pilgrimages  to  Rome  be  abolished,  not  as  evil 
in  themselves,  but  because  it  is  not  well  for  pilgrims  to  see 
the  wickedness  of  Rome.  Pilgrimages  after  all  are  ques- 
tionable; It  is  better  for  a  man  to  attend  to  his  duties  at 
home. 

13.  Build  no  more  cloisters  for  the  Mendicants;  let 
them  stop  their  begging,  preaching,  and  confessing. 

14.  The  marriage  of  the  clergy  was  not  forbidden  in 
apostolic  times.  "  I  advise  that  it  again  be  made  free  and 
left  to  the  discretion  of  each  to  marry  or  not."  Espe- 
cially the  parish  priests  should  be  allowed  to  marry  their 
housekeepers,  with  whom  they  live,  and  legitimatize  their 
children. 

15.  Let  the  rules  of  confession  for  the  wretched  clois- 
ters be  changed,  so  that  monks  and  nuns  more  freely  may 
confess  their  secret  sins. 

16.  Give  up  the  masses  and  fixed  prayers  for  the  souls 
of  the  dead;  which  are  done  without  love.     ''It  is  im- 


MARTIN  LUTHER  211 

possible  that  a  work  should  be  pleasing  to  God  which  is 
not  done  freely  in  love." 

17.  Abolish  various  ecclesiastical  penalties,  including 
the  interdict. 

18.  Give  up  all  saints'  days,  with  their  carousing,  except 
Sundays. 

19.  Change  the  degrees  within  which  marriage  is  for- 
bidden; abolish  fasts. 

20.  Tear  down  the  forest  chapels,  where  miracles  occur 
for  gold;  give  up  pilgrim  jaunts,  and  let  God  exalt  the 
saints. 

21.  Forbid  begging  through  Christendom;  let  each 
town  care  for  its  poor. 

22.  Abolish  the  new  foundations  for  prayers  and 
masses  for  departed  souls. 

23.  Have  done  with  papal  dispensations  and  indul- 
gences —  a  measure  which  Luther  urges  with  telling 
invective  against  the  pope,  and  a  call  on  Christ  to  descend 
and  destroy  the  devil's  nest  in  Rome. 

24.  Come  to  an  accord  with  the  Bohemians,  and  recog- 
nize whatever  truth  and  justice  there  may  be  in  their 
convictions. 

25.  Reform  the  universities,  where  there  is  too  much 
Aristotle  and  too  little  Christ.  Throw  out  Aristotle's 
Physics,  Metaphysics,  and  the  rest  of  him,  except  his 
Logic,  Rhetoric,  and  Poetics,  which,  in  condensed  form 
might  be  kept  for  elementary  discipline.  Maintain  Latin, 
Greek  and  Hebrew,  with  mathematics  and  history.  I 
leave  it  to  the  physicians  to  reform  their  faculty;  but  with 
regard  to  jurisprudence  it  were  well  to  omit  the  Canon 
Law,  especially  the  Decretals.  There  is  enough  in  the 
Bible.  As  for  our  secular  law,  God  help  us,  it  is  a  jumble 
of  territorial  law  and  custom  and  imperial  law.  For  the 
theologians,  I  say,  let  them  give  up  the  Sentences  [of  the 
Lombard]  for  the  Bible,  and  reduce  the  number  of 
treatises.     Let  the  Bible  be  read  in  the  schools. 

26.  The  papacy  professes  to  have  taken  the  Empire 
from  the  Greeks,  and  to  have  handed  it  over  to  the  Ger- 


212  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

mans.  But  the  pope  has  our  goods  and  honor,  our  bodies, 
lives  and  souls!  Nevertheless,  though  the  papacy  took 
the  Empire  dishonestly,  we  have  honestly  received  it:  let 
us  rule  and  manage  it  in  freedom,  not  as  slaves  of  the 
pope.  Let  the  German  Emperor  be  emperor  indeed,  in 
right  and  freedom. 

27.  For  ourselves,  we  are  luxurious  and  extravagant. 
We  should  be  as  well  off  with  less  trade  and  commerce. 
It  were  better  to  have  more  agriculture.  And  alas  for 
our  excesses  in  eating  and  drinking,  for  which  we  Germans 
have  such  ill  repute  abroad.  Finally,  alas  for  the  houses 
of  ill-fame  among  us!  and  alas  also  for  their  complement, 
the  mistaken  vows  of  chastity,  on  the  part  of  monks  and 
nuns  and  priests,  which  so  few  can  keep !  I  have  spoken 
boldly;  perhaps  too  sharply.  But  it  is  better  to  anger 
the  world  than  God! 

In  the  power  of  its  wrathful  reason,  the  address  to  the 
German  nobility  is  Luther  truly,  and  yet  Luther  speaking 
as  a  German.  It  shows  him  as  an  element  in  a  situation, 
and  serves  to  introduce  us  to  him  through  his  participation 
in  the  convictions  and  detestations  of  his  people.  It  is 
far  from  an  expression  of  his  innermost  self,  or  of  the 
needs,  anxieties,  and  impulses  which  first  drove  him  into 
a  convent  and  then  drove  him  out  from  that  bounden  way 
of  living  which  brought  no  rest  to  his  soul.  His  nature 
was  religious  fundamentally;  its  anxieties  and  impulses 
hung  on  his  soul's  relationship  to  God.  To  all  this  he 
gave  convincing  utterance  In  his  tract  upon  The  Freedom 
of  a  Christian,  the  pronunciamento  of  his  very  self.  But 
before  examining  that  writing,  it  were  well  to  remember 
the  lines  of  antecedents  which  drew  together  Into  this 
burning  nature,  and  then  observe  the  youthful  fermenta- 
tion preceding  the  explosion. 

The  Inner  verity  (or  falsity!)  and  outward  facts  of 
Luther's  life  —  themes  of  whole  libraries!  Of  outward 
facts  It  will  be  recalled  that  he  v/as  born  at  Elsleben  In 
1483  of  well-to-do  peasant  stock.  While  he  was  a  baby, 
his  parents  moved  to  the  neighboring  town  of  Mansfield, 


MARTIN  LUTHER  ai3 

where  mining  was  the  chief  industry.  His  father  became 
a  miner,  a  work  for  which  the  boy  Martin  showed  himself 
unfit;  the  mines  impressed  him  as  murky  places  where 
devils  bewitch  and  fool  men  with  pockets  of  false  ore, 
which  were  not  so  easy  in  the  light  of  day.  From  his 
childhood  to  his  dying  day  Luther  believed  in  devils  pres- 
ent and  perceptible,  perplexing  men  and  hindering  them, 
filling  them  with  wicked  doubts  and  devilish  fears.  One 
remembers  his  circumstantial  story  of  devils  throwing 
hazel  nuts  at  him  in  bed  In  his  chamber  at  the  Wartburg. 

In  due  course  he  was  sent  away  from  home  to  schools 
(of  which  he  has  little  good  to  say)  at  Magdeburg,  and 
then  at  Eisenach,  where  his  pleasing  boy's  voice,  singing 
in  the  street  for  his  supper,  won  him  the  affection  of  Frau 
Cotta,  wife  of  a  prosperous  merchant.  When  seventeen 
he  entered  the  flourishing  university  of  Erfurt.  There 
he  pursued  philosophy  of  the  scholastic  type,  adhering  to 
the  popular  and  progressive  nominalism  of  Occam.  A 
band  of  youthful  humanists  were  gathering  there  at  Er- 
furt. But  Luther  was  never  tempted  toward  classicism 
of  style,  though  his  earliest  letters  are  not  free  from  cur- 
rent humanistic  phrases.  He  read  the  usual  Latin 
authors,  and  became  as  ready  with  that  tongue  as  he  was 
with  his  mother  German.  It  is  not  recorded  that  he  was 
addicted  to  reading  the  Bible,  or  noticeably  affected  by 
religion.  At  the  end  of  a  year  he  received  his  Bachelor's 
degree,  and  three  years  later  was  made  a  magister  with 
some  eclat.  He  entered  now  upon  the  study  of  law,  for 
which  his  father  intended  him. 

But  something  happened  to  him,  or  perhaps  had 
already  happened,  or  been  prepared,  within  him.  In  July, 
1505,  near  Erfurt,  he  was  caught  in  a  heavy  thunderstorm, 
and  cried  out:  "Help,  good  St.  Anna,  I  will  become  a 
monk."  Something  within  him,  beyond  physical  terror, 
must  have  responded  to  the  thunder.  It  was  the  moment, 
or  occasion,  of  his  conversion.  He  announced  his  pur- 
pose, bade  formal  farewell  to  his  friends,  and  entered  the 
Augustinian  convent  there  at  Erfurt.  The  town  had 
seven   other   monasteries,    and   he   chose   well;    for   the 


214  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Augustlnlan  convent  was  pious  and  orderly,  given  to 
preaching  and  clean  living;  and  had  the  admirable  Stau- 
pltz  for  its  head.  Luther  found  there  nothing  to  make 
him  waver.  He  had  fifteen  months  to  consider  his  deci- 
sion before  taking  the  final  vows.  In  the  year  following 
that  event  he  was  ordained  priest  ( 1 507 ) . 

Luther's  convent  life  passed  in  study  and  strenuous  ob- 
servance. He  devoted  himself  to  scholastic  theology  and 
philosophy,  still  following  Occam,  in  whose  system  lay 
much  disintegrating  criticism  of  the  whole  scholastic 
structure.  He  also  studied  the  works  of  Peter  D'Ailly,  a 
broadminded  churchman,  who  favored  the  authority  of 
Councils,  and  those  of  Gabriel  Blel,  an  influential  German 
scholastic  who  had  recently  died.  He  began  a  close  read- 
ing of  the  Bible,  which  was  not  as  yet  to  bring  him  certi- 
tude or  peace.  What  was  taking  place  in  his  mind?  It 
was  tortured  with  anxieties  and  fears  beyond  the  under- 
standing of  his  fellows.  But  one  should  not  think  of  him 
as  on  the  verge  of  religious  melancholia ;  for  a  mental  con- 
dition which  might  to-day  denote  weak  reason  and  a  neuro- 
tic temperament,  had  no  such  significance  in  the  early  six- 
teenth century,  when  the  most  intelligent  were  still  justi- 
fied by  their  intellectual  environment  in  entertaining  a 
lively  fear  of  hell.  In  Luther's  personality  a  powerfully 
reasoning  faculty  and  an  immense  rational  perception 
were  united  with  emotional  energy  and  that  religious  or 
self-depreciating  temperament  which  contemplates  human 
destinies  as  dependent  on  a  mightiest  being,  and  deems  its 
salvation  to  lie  In  obedient  union  with  that  Being.  Thus 
Luther's  mind  was  held  In  dilemmas  of  its  general  educa- 
tion and  doctrinal  Instruction,  and  Its  furthest  spiritual 
intuitions.  It  was  tormented  by  its  sinfulness  and  Inabil- 
ity to  attain  a  righteousness  that  should  unite  him  with 
the  Being  in  whom  was  Its  salvation.  The  young  Luther 
was  endeavoring  punctiliously  to  fulfil  the  righteousness  of 
a  monk;  but  his  life,  exemplary  to  others'  eyes,  seemed  to 
him  Infected  with  shortcomings  and  frustration.  Deep 
spasms  of  unhapplness  came  over  him.  One  may  also 
remember  that  he  was  twenty-five  years  old,  and  of  a 


MARTIN  LUTHER  215 

temper  that  might  be  prone  to  the  ardors  of  the  flesh. 

In  1508  the  watchful  Staupitz  procured  Luther's  call  to 
Wittenberg,  to  teach  logic  and  ethics  of  the  Aristotelian 
brand  in  the  Saxon  Elector's  new  university.  But  before 
many  months  elapsed  he  returned  to  the  Erfurt  convent 
in  order  to  teach  or  study  theology.  In  15 11  Staupitz 
sent  him  with  a  brother  monk  on  an  errand  to  Rome. 
There  his  heart  filled  with  reverence  for  the  Eternal  City 
with  its  myriad  tombs  and  relics  of  the  martyred  saints; 
but  he  was  shocked,  as  any  earnest  inexperienced  German 
would  have  been,  by  the  worldliness  and  immorality  of 
the  clergy.  After  his  return  in  15  12  he  settled  perma- 
nently in  the  Augustinian  convent  at  Wittenberg,  to  teach 
theology  and  philosophy  at  the  university,  which  now 
made  him  a  doctor  of  theology.  He  called  himself  Pro- 
fessor of  Holy  Scripture.  Preaching  was  soon  added  to 
his  duties;  he  had  the  gift  for  this,  thoui^h  at  first  he  spoke 
with  trepidation.  In  15 15  he  was  made  district  vicar  of 
his  Order,  an  office  which  put  eleven  monasteries  under  his 
care.  His  life  had  ceased  to  be  that  of  a  recluse  monk; 
he  had  become  a  man  of  varied  duties  among  men,  with  a 
huge  correspondence,  and  the  beginnings  of  a  prodigious 
literary  activity.  No  greater  preacher  had  appeared  in 
Germany;  and  never  was  there  so  great  a  pamphleteer  as 
Luther  became.  His  occupations  freed  him  from  the 
danger  of  morbidity,  and  with  his  studies  and  lecturing, 
promoted  the  growth  of  all  his  faculties. 

Luther's  first  lecture  course  was  upon  the  Psalms.  The 
next  year  he  took  up  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  in 
expounding  it,  learned  much  for  himself,  as  he  says,  "  saw 
the  light."  He  continued  with  a  course  on  Galatians. 
According  to  the  traditional  interpretation  concurred  in 
by  Erasmus,  Paul's  ''  works  of  the  law  "  referred  to  Jew- 
ish ceremonies.  Luther  maintained  that  Paul  meant  the 
whole  moral  law  included  in  the  Decalogue.  "  It  mat- 
tered little  if  man  could  not  fulfil  the  minutiae  of  a 
ceremonial  abrogated  by  Christ;  but  it  was  quite  a  differ- 

2  Letter  to  Spalatin   of   Oct.   19,   1516  —  De   Wette's   Edition,    I,   p.    39. 
My  references  to  Luther's  letters  are  to  this  edition. 


2i6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ent  affair  to  become  convinced  that  no  man  could  fulfil  the 
unabrogated  moral  law  of  God.  This  conviction  appears 
to  have  driven  Luther  to  take  refuge  with  Paul  in  salva- 
tion through  faith. 

As  Luther  had  little  knowledge  of  Greek  or  Hebrew, 
he  was  obliged  to  use  the  Vulgate.  He  sought  guidance 
in  the  w^orks  of  the  Church  Fathers,  especially  Augustine ; 
and  also  studied  the  commentary  of  Nicholas  of  Lyra,  and 
the  very  recent  work  of  Lefevre  of  Etaples.'^  Besides 
which,  he  read  Tauler  and  the  Theologia  Deutsch.  In 
15 16  appeared  Erasmus'  edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment, and  Luther  set  himself  to  master  that  tongue.  His 
mind  always  pressed  for  the  best  scholarship  on  the  sub- 
jects holding  his  interest;  before  this,  he  had  spoken  out 
boldly  for  Reuchlin,  against  the  bigots  of  Cologne.  Lie 
cared  little  for  Aquinas  and  his  school;  and  began  to 
abjure  their  pagan  master,  Aristotle.  His  Influence  was 
already  felt  by  his  friends  at  Wittenberg,  among  whom 
was  Carlstadt,  whose  later  radical  views  Vv^ere  to  prove 
such  a  thorn  In  Luther's  side.  By  May,  15 17,  he  speaks 
of  "  our  theology  "  as  progressing,  while  Aristotle  is  de- 
clining to  defeat. 

Naturally  Luther's  keen  mind  perceived  the  follies  of 
sundry  religious  practices,  w^hile  his  increasing  knov/ledge 
of  men  and  affairs  acquainted  him  with  the  corruption  In 
the  priesthood  and  the  monastic  orders.  He  began  to 
think  pilgrimages  foolish,  and  to  say  so  in  his  sermons. 
While  not  as  yet  condemning  In  principle  the  worship  of 
the  saints,  he  protested  vigorously,  as  Erasmus  did, 
against  the  preposterous  prayers  which  they  were  asked 
to  grant;  and  he  showed  the  silliness  of  some  of  their 
legends.  He  was  painfully  impressed  with  the  dearth  of 
true  Gospel  preaching  In  the  Church. 

Through  the  crying  corruption  of  an  Institution,  one 
may  be  led  to  denounce  the  Institution  Itself  on  principle. 
It  was  thus  with  Luther  In  regard  to  indulgences.  As 
early  as  July,  15 16,  he  spoke  with  some  uncertainty  against 
abuses  of  the  practice.     And  In  later  sermons  through 

3  Cf-  ante  p.  153  and  post  p.  384  sqcj. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  217 

that  year  and  the  first  half  of  the  next,  he  continued  his 
attack  upon  their  pernicious  effects,  while  still  recognizing 
their  legitimate  basis  In  the  merits  of  Christ  and  the 
saints.  Indulgences  Indeed  were  very  old,  and,  within 
limits,  justified  by  good  church  doctrine.  It  had  long 
been  held  that  sins  committed  after  baptism  could  be 
blotted  out  only  through  the  sacrament  of  penance.  Re- 
pentance, confession  to  a  priest,  and  acts  In  atonement 
were  required.  The  priest  pronounced  absolution  from 
eternal  punishment,  yet  the  satisfaction  of  penitential 
acts  must  be  renciered,  to  relieve  the  sinner  from  punish- 
ment In  purgatory.  Various  forms  of  penance  were  al- 
lowed :  one  could  go  on  a  crusade,  or  undertake  less  dan- 
gerous pilgrimages;  then  there  were  fasts  and  scourgings, 
and  at  last  the  payment  of  money.  The  souls  of  the 
dead  might  be  released  from  purgatory  by  money  pay- 
ments. In  the  popular  mind,  and  often  by  the  connivance 
of  the  clergy,  such  payments  freed  the  sinner  from  all  the 
evil  consequences  of  his  sins. 

This  system  appeals  to  many  Instincts,  and,  considering 
the  level  of  Intelligence  through  the  Middle  Ages,  one 
realizes  that  the  Church  could  not  have  maintained  moral 
discipline  by  any  more  spiritual  means.  The  old  wergeld 
was  In  the  blood;  men  understood  penance  and  absolution 
upon  atonement,  payment  —  the  painful  costly  act,  or  the 
money  handed  to  the  priest.  Righteousness  through 
faith  alone  would  have  been  Intangible. 

By  the  sixteenth  century,  men  had  become  more  intelli- 
gent, and  the  abuses  of  the  penitential  system  appeared 
grosser,  and,  in  fact,  had  become  more  pronounced  and 
demoralizing.  In  the  famous  instance  before  us,  Pope 
Leo  X.,  needing  money  to  complete  St.  Peter's,  proclaimed 
a  "  plenary  Indulgence  "  offering  sweeping  benefits  to  pur- 
chasers; and  the  impecunious  Hohenzollern  Albrecht, 
Archbishop  of  Mainz,  bargained  with  the  pope  to  manage 
the  sale  of  Indulgences  In  Germany  on  shares.  Tetzel,  a 
Dominican,  was  his  agent.  Now  be  It  marked  that  the 
campaign  of  Tetzel,  whose  approach  to  Wittenberg 
roused  Luther  to  post  those  famous  Theses,  had  already 


2i8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

led  Duke  George  of  Saxony,  stanchest  of  Catholics,  to 
forbid  the  sale  within  his  territory.  The  great  Elector 
too,  Luther's  Elector  Frederic,  had  forbidden  Tetzel  to 
enter  his  part  of  Saxony.  But  without  crossing  the  Saxon 
border,  Tetzel  had  come  near  enough  to  draw  many  good 
WIttenbergers  to  his  sale. 

Luther  devoted  some  months  of  study  and  reflection  to 
the  whole  matter  of  penance  and  Indulgences;  and  on  the 
last  day  of  October,  15 17,  he  posted  on  the  door  of  the 
Castle  church  the  notice  of  a  disputation  together  with  the 
ninety-five  propositions,  or  theses,  which  he  proposed  to 
maintain. 

These  began  with  a  statement  that  when  Christ  com- 
manded repentance  he  meant  that  the  entire  life  of  the 
believer  should  be  a  state  of  penitence.  Passing  on  from 
this  broad  premise,  the  Theses,  point  by  point,  or  rather 
blow  on  blow,  demonstrated  the  futility  of  the  sale  and 
purchase  of  Indulgences,  and  attacked  the  heart  of  the 
papal,  or  Catholic,  penitential  system.  For  example:  the 
pope  can  remit  only  those  punishments  which  he  has  pre- 
scribed In  accord  with  sound  doctrine  :  when  the  coin  clinks 
in  the  box,  though  avarice  may  gain,  forgiveness  still  de- 
pends on  God;  whoever  thinks  that  the  Indulgence  makes 
his  salvation  sure.  Is  damned  eternally  with  those  who 
taught  him  so;  every  Christian  who  lives  In  true  repent- 
ance has  complete  remission  of  his  sins,  without  any  letter 
of  indulgence;  true  penitence  loves  punishment,  the  Indul- 
gence marks  Its  rejection;  he  does  better  who  gives  his 
money  to  the  poor;  the  Indulgences  Issuing  from  the  so- 
called  treasury  of  the  Church  makes  the  last  first;  Christ's 
gospel  Is  the  true  treasure  of  the  church,  and  makes  the 
first  last. 

The  doctrinal  details  of  this  controversy  are  no  longer 
of  Interest.  But  the  conflict  was  important  for  the  world, 
being  the  obvious  occasion  of  Luther's  rupture  with  the 
papal  church;  for  himself  It  was  Important  as  a  stage  in 
the  attainment  of  his  spiritual  freedom;  a  fact  of  which 
he  seems  to  have  been  conscious,  since  he  now  took  to 
signing  himself  In  letters  to  his  friends,  Martin  Eleuther- 


MARTIN  LUTHER  ^i^ 

ius,  or  Martin  the  Free.  There  Is  no  need  to  speak  of 
the  storm  of  enthusiasm  as  well  as  condemnation,  which 
the  Theses  roused,  loosed,  one  might  say.  Germany  was 
stirred;  so  were  the  Indulgence  sellers  and  papal  advo- 
cates, and  In  time  the  papacy  Itself.  Thousands  of  books 
have  told  the  story,  not  always  quite  in  the  same  words  I 
The  course  of  the  dispute  educed  the  steadfast  intrepidity 
of  Luther's  nature,  and  served  to  show  him  where  he 
stood  and  perforce  must  stand.  Thus  his  defense  before 
the  papal  legate  Cajetan  at  Augsburg,  his  argument  with 
the  more  deft  and  understanding  Miltltz,  the  formal 
disputation  with  Doctor  Eck  at  Leipzig,  the  lowering  and 
certain  papal  excommunication,  and  at  last  its  fall,  all 
helped  to  evoke  the  man  and  propel  him  onward  to  the 
final  freeing  of  his  spirit.  Friends  and  adherents  anx- 
iously upheld  his  hands,  and  the  protection  of  his  prince 
prevented  his  bodily  snuffing  out  by  papal  legates. 


II 

A  man  whom  the  papal  catholic  church  sought  to 
annihilate,  and  who  on  his  side  was  preparing  to  cast  loose 
from  it,  would  feel  the  need  to  justify  and  strengthen  his 
steps.  Luther  felt  as  well  the  deeper  need  to  make  firm 
his  convictions  touching  his  new  assurance  of  salvation, 
which  was  grounded,  and  had  its  height  and  depth.  In 
faith,  and  had  freed  his  soul  not  only  from  the  salvation 
which  the  papal  church  claimed  to  monopolize,  hierarchi- 
cally and  sacerdotally  as  It  were,  but  also  from  the  bond- 
age of  the  works  which  the  Church  held  needful  for  every 
one  that  should  be  saved.  Thus,  both  within  his  soul  and 
for  the  edification  of  the  world,  Luther  had  to  establish  a 
justification  of  his  severance  from  the  papal  church,  and 
the  grounds  of  his  saving  faith. 

Since  the  papal  ban  was  about  to  fall  on  him,  his  first 
task  was  to  demonstrate  its  nullity.  Shortly  after  posting 
his  Theses  he  had  spoken  on  this,  but  by  no  means  finally. 
Afterwards,  returning  to  the  subject  (15 19),  he  wrote  a 
sermon  on  the  Holy  Sacrament  of  the  Communion,  as 


220  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

preparatory  to  the  examination  of  the  obviously  con- 
nected excoynmunicatio  which  he  considered  in  his 
weighty  "Sermon  on  the  Ban,"  written  in  1519, 
and  published  early  in  the  next  year.  He  argues 
thus:  As  the  Sacrament  is  both  sign  and  significance, 
so  is  the  Communion  twofold.  Priest  or  pope  cannot 
sever  the  believer  from  the  spiritual  communion  which 
rests  in  faith,  though  he  may  be  excluded  from  outer  par- 
ticipation in  the  Sacrament.  This  was  the  lesser  excom- 
munication. When  extended  to  the  prohibition  of  all 
intercourse  as  well  as  Christian  burial,  it  became  the 
greater  excommunication.  Later  it  carried  with  it  fire 
and  sword,  thus  going  beyond  Scripture,  which  leaves  the 
sword  to  the  secular  authorities.  An  excommunicated 
person  may  be  forbidden  the  Sacrament  and  even  deprived 
of  burial,  and  yet  be  safe  and  blessed  in  the  Communion  of 
Christ.  Conversely,  many  who  are  admitted  to  the  Sacra- 
ment may  be  in  a  state  of  spiritual  separation.  No  ex- 
communication has  the  effect  of  delivering  the  soul  into 
hell,  though,  when  deserved,  it  may  be  a  sign  that  the 
faithless  soul  has  given  itself  over  to  the  devil  through  its 
sins.  The  object  of  the  excommunication  is  to  bring  the 
damned  soul  back.  Christians  should  honor  and  love  it 
as  the  warning  punishment  of  motherly  love.  So  the 
sermon  showed  that  even  a  rightful  excommunication 
should  not  be  regarded  as  an  object  of  terror;  while  an 
unjust  ban  was  a  spiritual  nullity.  After  Luther's  ex- 
communication, the  latter  point  received  adequate  treat- 
ment in  his  polemic,  Against  the  Bull  of  the  Antichrist. 
With  his  mind  settled  as  to  the  spiritual  impotence  of 
papal  bulls,  the  ills  which  might  happen  to  his  body  could 
safely  be  left  with  God  and  the  secular  powers.  He  was 
a  fearless  man.  But  now  while  his  opponent  Dr.  Eck  was 
publishing  the  Bull  in  Saxony,  Luther  launched  a  mighty 
blow  at  the  papal  edifice,  from  which  he  had  just  emerged, 
or  been  ejected.  At  the  close  of  his  Address  to  the  Ger- 
man Nobility,  he  had  announced  another  little  song  about 
Rome  and  about  his  enemies  who  would  accept  no  peace 
from  him,  and  loud  would  he  sing  it.     If  the  Address  had 


MARTIN  LUTHER  221 

breached  those  three  walls  with  which  Rome  had  bul- 
warked her  corruption,  he  would  now  shatter  her  inner 
defenses  and  the  armory  where  she  forged  her  weapons 
and  the  chains  in  which  she  held  the  Church.  In  line,  it 
was  the  papal  sacramental  system  that  he  sought  to  de- 
stroy by  this  Prelude  upon  the  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the 
Church.  As  his  argument  dealt  largely  with  dogma,  he 
chose  to  write  the  piece  in  Latin. 

"  I  learn  more  every  day,  as  I  must,  since  so  many  clever 
masters  push  me  on,"  —  says  Luther,  mockingly.  "  And 
now  would  that  what  I  have  written  on  indulgences  might 
be  burnt,  so  that  I  might  simply  declare :  indulgences  are  a 
vain  invention  of  the  Roman  Flatterer.  Eck  and  his  like 
have  taught  me  such  things  of  the  pope's  high  mightiness, 
that  I  could  also  throw  away  whatever  I  have  written  on 
that  matter;  for  now  I  see  that  the  papacy  is  Babylon,  the 
dominion  of  the  mighty  hunter,  the  sheer  dumping  ground 
of  the  bishop  of  Rome." 

The  sacraments  are  not  seven,  but  three.  Baptism,  Pen- 
ance, and  the  Eucharist;  and  indeed  Penance  should  be 
excluded  if  a  sacrament  is  a  promise  coupled  with  a  sign. 
The  Eucharist  is  held  captive  first  through  the  pope's 
godless  withholding  of  the  cup  from  the  laity,  whose  con- 
science craves  it;  secondly  through  the  doctrine  of  tran- 
substantiation;  thirdly,  by  the  teaching  that  the  mass  is  a 
sacrifice  and  a  good  work.  But  neither  the  pope  nor  even 
a  general  council  can  make  new  articles  of  belief.  In  the 
celebration  of  the  mass,  only  faith  is  needed,  faith  in 
Christ  promising  forgiveness  of  sins  to  those  v/ho  believe 
that  his  body  and  blood  were  given  for  them. 

Through  baptism,  he  who  believes  and  is  baptized  will 
be  saved:  the  belief  Is  everything;  the  act  Is  but  the  outer 
sign,  carrying  no  saving  virtue.  But  the  freedom  of  our 
baptism  is  led  captive  by  the  pope  through  set  prayers  and 
fasts  and  gifts.  And  as  for  further  vows,  would  that  all 
those  of  monks  and  nuns  and  pilgrimages  could  be  swept 
away;  for  they  Impugn  the  freedom  of  baptism,  wherein 
indeed  we  undertook  more  than  we  ever  shall  fulfil!  All 
rash  vows,  and  vows  of  the  young  should  be  held  void. 


222  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  pope  alone  can  dispense  vows !  Absurd !  Everyone 
may,  for  his  neighbor  or  himself.  But  neither  the  pope 
nor  another  can  dispense  from  the  holy  vows  of  marriage. 
Divorce  is  such  an  abomination  that  bigamy  were  better. 
Nor  has  the  pope  authority  to  invent  artificial  impedi- 
ments, for  the  breach  of  which,  unless  he  dispense  them, 
the  marriage  may  be  dissolved.  Yet  marriage  is  not  a 
sacrament,  since  it  carries  no  promise  and  exacts  no  faith. 
Neither  is  confirmation,  ordination,  or  extreme  unction. 
As  for  penance  (whether  it  be  a  sacrament  or  not),  its 
virtue  which  lies  in  the  divine  promise  and  our  faith,  has 
been  made  null  by  prescribed  works  of  repentance,  con- 
fession and  atonement.  Whereupon  Luther  returns  to 
his  attack  upon  indulgences. 

The  "  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  Church  "  was  for 
Luther  himself,  and  for  all  the  world,  a  sufficiently  em- 
phatic declaration  of  the  Christian's  independence  of  the 
papacy  and  its  sacramental  monopoly.  But  it  did  not  con- 
tain the  demonstration  of  that  fuller  freedom  of  the 
human  spirit  which  lies  in  the  certitude  of  man's  salvation 
in  his  direct  relationship  with  God  through  Christ.  A 
broad  foundation  for  this  freedom  was  laid  in  Luther's 
sermon  On  good  works ,  written  in  the  early  part  of  1520, 
Those  only  are  good  works  which  are  commanded  by 
God;  only  those  acts  which  He  has  forbidden  are  sins. 
The  first  and  noblest  of  good  works  is  faith,  without 
which  prayers,  fasts,  pious  foundations  and  all  outer  acts, 
are  vain.  With  faith  every  daily  act  of  life  and  business 
is  good;  and  everyone  knows  when  he  does  right  by  the 
inner  confidence  that  his  act  is  pleasing  to  God.  Any 
work  done  without  faith  might  be  done  by  Turk  or 
heathen,  Jew  or  sinner.  Faith  is  not  to  be  classed  with 
other  works,  since  it  alone  makes  all  other  v/orks  good, 
and  brings  with  it  love,  peace,  joy,  hope.  In  faith,  distinc- 
tions between  works  fall  away,  and  all  works  are  equally 
good,  since  they  are  good  and  pleasing  to  God  not  in 
themselves  but  through  faith  in  His  word.  Doubt  leads 
the  Christian  to  distinguish  between  works  and  question 
which  is  better.     Only  faith  comforts  us  in  our  works. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  4^3 

sorrows,  and  disappointments  and  dispels  the  thought  that 
God  has  forsaken  us,  even  when  we  stand  in  prospect  of 
death  and  fear  of  hell. 

Works  without  faith  justify  no  one  in  the  sight  of  God. 
Our  works  are  praiseworthy  only  through  our  faith  that 
they  are  pleasing  to  Him.  Had  every  one  faith,  no  laws 
would  be  needed.  All  things  and  works  are  free  to  a 
Christian  through  his  faith;  but  because  others  do  not  yet 
believe,  he  works  with  them,  and  suffers  them,  freely, 
knowing  that  this  pleases  God.  Thus  the  freedom  of 
faith  is  no  freedom  to  do  evil,  harmful  acts.  And  Luther 
proceeds  to  set  forth  in  detail  that  excellence  of  living 
which  comes  with  faith  in  Christ  and  accords  with  the  com- 
mands of  God. 

Such  is  the  foundation  of  the  freedom  which  Luther 
sought  for  himself  and  for  every  man.  But  in  the  tract 
upon  the  "  Freedom  of  the  Christian  Man  "  written  also 
in  1520,  Luther  completes  the  structure  of  this  freedom, 
and  indicates  the  way  his  mind  had  reached  it;  as  Paul  set 
forth  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  the  way  of  freedom 
which  he  had  found,  and  now  declared  to  them. 

Miltitz,  a  gentleman  of  the  world  as  well  as  a  papal 
agent,  seeing  the  dangers  involved  in  the  Lutheran  revolt, 
sought  a  means  of  truce.  Lie  tried  to  persuade  Luther 
into  some  sort  of  submission  to  the  pope,  perhaps  unaware 
as  yet  of  the  vast  truculence  of  Luther's  nature.  In  the 
autumn  of  1520  when  Luther  in  fact  was  under  excom- 
munication, Miltitz  asked  him  to  write  a  letter  to  the  pope 
and  dedicate  a  conciliatory  vv^ork  to  him.  The  request 
bore  other  fruit!  Luther  wrote  a  letter  and  prefixed  it 
to  The  Freedom  of  the  Christian  Alan,  which  was  nearly 
through  the  press,  antedating  both  the  letter  and  the 
treatise,  that  they  might  not  seem  to  have  been  written 
under  the  pressure  of  the  ban.  Indeed  they  scarcely 
would  have  given  that  impression.  The  letter  was  writ- 
ten in  Latin  and  German,  while  the  treatise  was  written  in 
German,  but  was  shortly  followed  by  a  Latin  translation 
bearing  the  title  Tractatus  de  lihertate  Christiana.  * 

^  The  German  Title  "  Von  der  Freiheit  einea  Christenraenschen  "  is  usu- 


224  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Luther  begins  his  letter  with  an  elaborate  protestation 
that  he  has  never  said  a  word  against  His  Holiness,  and 
has  always  spoken  of  him  with  the  respect  felt  by  all. 
Indeed  he  had  called  Leo  a  Daniel  In  Babylon!  He  had, 
to  be  sure,  attacked  certain  Impious  doctrines,  and  those 
who  maintained  them.  Yet  he  will  be  found  pliable  and 
yielding,  except  as  to  the  word  of  God,  by  which  he  must 
stand.  True  it  Is,  continues  Luther,  that  I  have  attacked 
your  Chair,  which  is  called  the  Curia;  but  no  one  knows 
better  than  yourself  that  its  state  is  worse  than  Sodom  or- 
Gomorrah  or  Babylon!  And  I  am  grieved  that  in  your 
name  and  that  of  the  Roman  Church,  they  have  betrayed 
and  robbed  the  poor  throughout  the  world.  I  w\\\  stand 
against  that!  None  is  better  aware  than  you,  that  for 
years  nothing  but  corruption  of  body,  soul,  and  estate  has 
come  out  of  Rome:  all  the  people  see  that  the  once  holy 
Roman  church  has  become  a  den  of  cutthroats  and  a  house 
of  shame,  of  death  and  damnation !  And  you.  Holy 
Father,  sit  as  a  sheep  among  w^olves ! 

The  vv^riter  goes  on,  pouring  the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon 
the  papacy,  with  revillngs  not  unlike  those  in  the  letter 
which  Hutten  prefixed  to  Valla's  book  on  the  forged 
"  Donation  of  Constantlne."  "  It  is  for  you  and  your 
cardinals  to  cure  this  woe.  But  the  disease  laughs  at  the 
physic.  .  .  .  This  is  why  I  am  sad,  you  pious  Leo,  to  see 
you  pope,  for  you  are  worthy  of  being  pope  in  better 
times.  The  Roman  chair  is  not  fit  for  such  as  you:  the 
evil  spirit  ought  to  be  pope.  .  .  .  Would  to  God,  you 
would  resign  this  honor,  as  your  spiteful  enemies  call  it. 
.  .  .  O  thou  most  unhappy  Leo,  seated  on  the  most 
perilous  of  chairs!   .   .   ." 

"  See,  my  lord  Father,  this  is  why  I  have  struck  at  this 
pestilential  chair  so  violently.  I  had  hoped  to  have 
earned  your  thanks.  I  thought  It  would  be  a  blessing  to 
you  and  many  others  to  rouse  intelligent  and  learned  men 
against  the  ruinous  disorder  of  your  court.     They  who 

ally  rendered  into  English,  as  "  the  freedom  of  a  Christian  man,"  perhaps 
the  best  rendering:,  if  one  will  bear  in  mind  that  Mensch  means  human 
being.  Both  versions  of  the  letter  are  given  in  De  Wette,  Vol  I,  pp. 
497  sqq. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  225 

attack  such  a  Curia  do  the  work  which  you  should  do; 
they  honor  Christ  who  put  that  court  to  shame."  In  fine, 
those  are  good  Christians  who  are  bad  Romans! — And 
for  me,  when  I  had  thought  to  keep  silence,  and  had  said 
'  Adieu !  sweet  Rome,  stink  on  '  ;  then  the  devil  set  on 
his  servant  Eck  to  drag  me  to  a  disputation!  But  that  I 
should  recant,  and  submit  to  be  ruled  in  the  interpretation 
of  God's  word,  which  is  freedom, —  never !  As  for  thee, 
trust  not  those  who  would  exalt  thee  as  its  sole  inter- 
preter; but  honor  those  who  would  bring  thee  down.  I, 
who  cannot  flatter,  am  forced  to  come  to  thy  aid,  and  not 
with  empty  hands,  but  with  a  little  book. —  and  Luther 
presents  him  The  Freedom  of  a  Christian  Man. 

The  letter  to  Leo  was  written  as  a  letter  to  Leo;  but 
the  little  book  which  Luther  as  an  afterthought  presented 
him,  was  written  to  set  forth  for  himself  and  those  who 
might  hold  with  him,  the  moving  convictions  of  his  spirit- 
ual freedom.  The  soul  of  Paul  lives  in  this  German  six- 
teenth century  book,  which  opens  with  a  lofty  Pauline  par- 
adox: "A  Christian  is  a  free  lord  over  all  things,  and 
subject  to  no  man.  A  Christian  is  a  bounden  servant  to 
all  things,  and  subject  to  everyone." 

The  solid  reasoning  of  Luther's  argument  will  best  be 
brought  out  by  following  it  point  by  point,  on  to  its  ver- 
itable attainment. 

A  Christian  is  both  spirit  and  body.  After  the  first  he 
is  a  spiritual,  new,  and  inner  man;  according  to  flesh  and 
blood,  he  is  a  corporeal,  old,  outer  man.  Hence  the  scrip- 
ture paradox,  that  he  is  both  bond  and  free. 

In  so  far  as  he  is  a  spiritual  inner  man,  no  outer  thing 
can  make  him  pious  and  free.  For  piety  and  freedom,  or 
their  opposites,  are  not  of  the  outer  man.  That  the 
body  Is  free  and  satisfied,  or  the  reverse,  neither  helps  nor 
hurts  the  soul. 

The  soul  is  not  helped  when  the  body  puts  on  holy  garb, 
frequents  churches,  prays,  fasts,  or  does  any  good  work; 
for  an  evil  man  can  do  all  this.  Nor  is  the  soul  injured 
when  the  body  abstains  from  all  this. 

The  soul  needs  only  the  holy  Gospel,  the  word  of  God 


226  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

preached  by  Christ;  she  has  food  and  joy  and  light  and 
truth,  wisdom  and  freedom  in  that. 

In  that  word  thou  shalt  hear  thy  God  telling  thee  that 
thy  life  and  works  are  nothing  in  God's  sight,  but  must 
eternally  perish  (ewiglich  verderben).  Believing  in  thy 
guiltiness,  thou  must  despair  of  thyself,  and  with  firm 
faith  give  thyself  to  God's  dear  Son  and  trust  in  him. 
Then  thy  sins  will  be  forgiven  thee  through  faith,  thy 
destruction  (verderben)  vanquished,  and  thou  wilt  be 
righteous,  at  peace,  with  all  commands  fulfilled,  and 
free   from  all  things,   as  St.   Paul  says    (Rom.    i,    17; 

io>4). 

Therefore  the  true  work  and  practice  for  Christians  lies 
in  building  up  Christ  and  the  word  within  them,  and  in 
constantly  strengthening  their  faith. 

Faith  alone,  without  works,  makes  righteous.  Scrip- 
ture consists  in  commands  and  promises.  The  former 
belong  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  bring  no  strength  to 
fulfil  them,  which  we  cannot  do. 

Then  the  man  despairs.  But  the  divine  promise  as- 
sures him;  if  thou  wilt  fulfil  all,  and  be  free  from  sin  and 
from  desire  of  evil,  believe  on  Christ  in  whom  I  promise 
thee  grace  and  righteousness,  peace  and  freedom.  Be- 
lieving, thou  hast;  unbelieving,  thou  hast  not.  God  alone 
commands;  and  God  alone  fulfils.  The  promises  are 
God's  words  in  the  New  Testament. 

"  These  and  all  words  of  God  are  holy,  true,  righteous, 
peaceful,  free,  and  full  of  all  good  things;  therefore,  who- 
soever cleaves  to  them  in  right  faith,  his  soul  is  so  entirely 
united  with  them,  that  all  the  virtues  of  the  word  become 
the  soul's,  and  through  faith  the  soul  is  by  God's  word 
holy,  righteous,  peaceful,  free  and  full  of  all  good  things, 
a  true  child  of  God.  .  .  .  No  good  work  cleaves  to  God's 
word  like  faith,  nor  can  be  in  the  soul,  where  only  the 
word  and  faith  can  reign.  What  the  word  is,  that  the 
soul  becomes  through  the  word,  as  iron  becomes  glowing 
red  as  the  fire,  through  union  with  it.  Hence  one  sees 
faith  is  sufficient  for  the  Christian;  he  needs  no  work  in 


MARTIN  LUTHER  227 

order  to  be  righteous.  If  then  he  needs  no  work,  he  is 
assuredly  loosed  from  all  commands  and  laws."  ^ 

To  believe  in  God  is  to  honor  Him:  to  disbelieve  is  to 
dishonor  Him.  When  God  sees  the  soul  thus  honoring 
Him,  He  honors  the  soul,  and  holds  it  righteous. 

Faith  joins  the  soul  to  Christ,  as  bride  to  bridegroom. 
They  become  one.  All  the  good  things  of  Christ  be- 
comes the  soul's,  and  the  sins  and  negligences  of  the  soul 
become  Christ's.  All  sins  are  swallowed  up  in  Christ's  in- 
vincible righteousness. 

Faith  fulfils  all  commands,  and  makes  righteous;  for  it 
fulfils  the  First  Commandment,  to  honor  God,  and  that 
fulfils  them  all.  "  But  works  are  dead  things,  which  can- 
not honor  and  praise  God,  though  they  may  be  done  in 
His  honor.  Here  we  seek  not  that  which  is  done  like  the 
works,  but  the  doer  and  workman  who  honors  God  and 
does  the  works.  That  is  none  other  than  the  heart's 
faith,  which  is  the  head  and  entire  being  of  piety. 
(Frommigkeit.)  Therefore  it  is  a  dangerous  dark  say- 
ing, when  one  exhorts  to  fulfil  the  commands  of  God  with 
works,  since  the  fulfilment  must  take  place  through  faith 
before  all  works;  and  the  works  follow  the  fulfilment,  as 
we  shall  hear." 

In  the  Old  Testament,  God  reserved  the  first  born  male 
of  man  and  beast,  and  gave  him  lordship  and  priesthood. 
This  was  a  symbol  of  Christ,  to  whom  is  given  the  spir- 
itual priesthood  and  kingship;  which  he  shares  with  all 
who  believe  on  him.  Hence  spiritually  v/e  are  lords  over 
all  things,  not  as  bodily  possessing  them,  but  as  spiritually 
made  free  regarding  them. 

Through  faith  all  believers  are  priests  and  intercessors, 
and  lords  of  all,  through  God's  power,  who  does  their 
will:  and  we  need  nothing,  and  have  abundance  —  spir- 
itually. We  lose  it  by  thinking  to  achieve  it  by  good 
works,  and  not  through  faith. 

In  Christendom,  priests  are  distinguished  from  laity 

5  I  use  quotation  marks  here,  because  I  have  translated  this  passage  in 
f\i\\.    Elsewhere  I  have  usually  condensed  the  substance  of  the  tract. 


228  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

merely  as  ministers  of  the  word  and  servers,  with  no 
further  privilege  over  other  Christians. 

It  is  not  enough  for  the  preacher  to  tell  the  story  of 
Christ;  he  must  make  plain  all  that  Christ  is  to  us; 
through  whom  we  are  kings  and  priests,  with  lordship 
over  all  things,  and  freed  from  the  works  of  the  Law,  our 
sins  taken  by  Christ,  and  his  righteousness  ours  through 
faith. 

But  men  are  not  all  spirit;  not  altogether  the  inner  man. 
We  are  also  bodies.  Thus  the  Christian  is  the  servant 
of  all,  and  bound  to  the  service  of  all.     Let  us  see. 

Though  we  are  "  inner  "  men,  justified  through  faith, 
yet  we  continue  in  this  bodily  life,  associating  with  other 
men.  Here  works  begin;  and  the  body  must  be  practised 
in  good  works,  that  it  may  conform  to  faith  and  the  inner 
man,  and  not  cause  him  to  stumble.  The  inner  man  is 
one  with  God,  and  joyful  in  the  doing  of  Christ's  will  in 
love  freely;  but  he  finds  a  contrary  will  in  his  own  flesh, 
willing  the  lusts  of  the  world,  which  faith  cannot  endure, 
as  Paul  saith. 

Works  must  not  be  done  in  the  thought  that  they  make 
the  man  righteous  before  God;  but  voluntaril)^  and 
freely,  to  please  God;  as  Adam  did  what  pleased  God, 
while  still  righteous  in  Eden. 

Thus  it  is  truly  said,  just  works  do  not  make  a  just  man ; 
but  a  just  man  does  just  works.  Nor  do  evil  w^orks  make 
an  evil  man;  but  an  evil  man  does  evil  works. 

Conversely,  good  works  will  not  save  one  who  is  with- 
out faith;  nor  will  evil  works  bring  him  to  perdition,  but 
his  unbelief.  So  it  is  vain  and  damnable  to  rely  on  works, 
or  preach  them  uncoupled  with  faith. 

As  toward  men,  our  works  must  be  done  in  love.  My 
God  has  given  to  me,  utterly  worthless  and  damned, 
righteousness  and  salvation  through  Christ,  so  that  hettce- 
forth  I  need  only  to  believe  that  this  is  so.  I  will  act 
toward  my  neighbor  likewise.  So  the  Virgin,  after 
Christ's  birth,  went  to  the  Temple  for  her  purification; 
not  that  she  was  impure,  but  did  it  freely  out  of  love,  so 
as  to  show  no  contempt  for  other  women.     And  so  Paul 


MARTIN  LUTHER  229 

circumcised  Timothy.  On  like  grounds,  we  should  be 
subject  to  the  authorities. 

Thus  no  work  Is  good,  unless  Its  end  is  to  serve  an- 
other. Few  cloisters,  churches,  masses,  have  been 
founded  or  endowed  from  love,  but  rather,  vainly,  to  cure 
the  founder's  sins.  Freely  must  the  good  things  of  God 
flow  from  one  to  another  of  us. 

"  From  all  this,  the  conclusion  follows  that  a  Christian 
does  not  live  unto  himself,  but  In  Christ  and  his  neighbor : 
in  Christ  through  faith,  in  his  neighbor  through  love. 
Through  faith  he  ascends  above  himself  in  God,  and 
through  love  passes  out  from  God  again  beneath  himself, 
yet  abides  always  in  God  and  godlike  love.  .  .  .  Behold, 
that  is  the  true,  spiritual  Christian  freedom  which  frees 
the  heart  from  all  sins,  laws  and  commands,  which  sur- 
passes all  other  freedom  as  the  heaven  the  earth.  This 
may  God  give  us  truly  to  understand  and  keep.     Amen." 

So  love  and  service  of  one's  neighbor  are  made  the  cri- 
terion and  sanctification  of  all  the  Christian's  acts.  His 
conduct  shall  not  be  hampered  and  harassed  by  anxieties 
regarding  his  sinlessness,  holiness,  aloofness  from  the 
dross  of  life.  He  does  not  need  the  safeguard  of  monas- 
tic vows :  let  him  marry  and  beget  children,  or  bear  them 
if  the  Christian  be  a  woman.  Let  the  two  take  part  In 
the  business  of  life,  plant  and  hoe  and  cook  unpestered 
with  vows  and  fasts  and  pilgrimages,  so  long  as  their 
lives  are  useful  and  do  not  cause  their  neighbor  to  stumble. 
Righteousness  needs  no  other  guaranty  than  faith,  and  the 
motive  of  useful  service  springing  from  it. 

The  incidents  of  Luther's  life,  which  have  been  men- 
tioned and  the  writings  that  have  been  analyzed,  indicate 
the  progress  of  his  convictions  until  the  time  of  his  revolt 
and  excommunication.  To  recapitulate :  we  know  little  of 
the  experiences  of  his  mind  during  his  years  at  school  and 
at  the  Erfurt  university.  But  we  know  that  from  the 
time  of  his  apparently  sudden  conversion  he  felt  acute 
anxiousness  over  his  sinfulness  and  consequent  perdition. 
Life  in  the  Augustinian  convent  consisted  in  conformity 
to  a  moral  and  religious  code,  In  the  observance  of  monas- 


:i30  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tic  rules,  and  the  performance  of  incidental  or  occasional 
duties.  Luther  found  that  he  could  not  clear  his  con- 
science and  assure  himself  of  salvation  by  the  strictest 
fulfilment  of  these  requirements,  any  more  than  Paul  could 
satisfy  his  mind  and  justify  himself  by  his  efforts  to  do  the 
work  of  the  Law.  Spiritual  certitude  was  an  imperative 
need  with  both.  Paul,  perhaps  In  that  spiritually  fruitful 
sojourn  In  Arabia  (Gal.  i,  17)  cast  off  the  saving  agency 
of  works  and  ensconced  himself  in  the  principle  of  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Luther  In  the  early  years  of  his  professor- 
ship at  Wittenberg  ( 15  12-16)  following  the  example  and 
the  doctrine  of  Paul,  accepted  faith  in  Christ  as  the  sole 
means  and  principle  of  salvation.  It  was  a  saving  grace 
flowing  directly  from  the  Saviour  to  the  sinner,  without 
the  intervention  of  any  pope  or  priest,  who  to  Luther's 
mind  were  prescrlbers  of  the  outer  act,  the  good  work,  the 
work  of  the  Law,  and  were  guarantors  of  its  efficacy, 
which  Luther  had  disproved  in  himself.  So  in  accepting 
faith  as  the  sole  principle  of  salvation,  he  virtually  freed 
himself  both  from  the  need  of  the  visible  church  and  from 
Its  authority. 

He  had  accomplished  this  for  himself,  and  had  im- 
parted some  of  the  freedom  of  his  faith  to  his  associates 
and  pupils,  by  the  year  15 16  or  15 17.  Then  Tetzel 
came  with  his  indulgences.  Luther  was  aroused  to  a  pro- 
test pregnant  with  defiance  and  revolt,  by  the  abominable 
nature  of  this  bartered  and  sold  salvation,  and  by  the 
realization  that  it  directly  countered  salvation  through 
faith,  which  he  had  reached  by  grace  and  not  through 
money.  Had  there  been  no  abuse,  Luther  would  not  have 
been  stung  to  an  open  attack  first  upon  the  abuse  and  then 
upon  the  doctrine ;  but  might  have  kept  on  quietly  teaching 
salvation  through  faith.  The  sale  of  indulgences,  which 
was  his  call  to  action,  made  clear  to  him  his  strength  and 
independence.  The  posting  of  his  Theses,  and  their  as- 
tounding reception.  Impressed  him  with  his  role  and  duty 
to  act  for  his  Germans  too. 

The  angry  controversy  which  followed  served  to  clear 
his  thoughts,  expand  his  arguments,  and  demonstrate  the 


MARTIN  LUTHER  231 

need  to  abandon  other  practices  and  tenets  of  the  papal 
church.  Moreover,  the  war  against  indulgences  pushed 
on  this  very  willing  man  to  champion  the  cause  of  his 
Germans  against  Rome;  and  as  the  fray  progressed  he 
carried  them  along  with  him,  from  point  to  point,  to  ever 
clearer  opposition  to  the  papal  church.  He  frees  them, 
as  he  frees  himself,  from  subjection  to  the  papal  hier- 
archy, and  from  the  system  of  salvation  which  depends  on 
priestly  mediation  and  consists  so  largely  in  the  perform- 
ance of  acts  prescribed  by  priestly  authority.  Thus  from 
denunciation  of  the  abuse  he  advances  to  emphatic  oppo- 
sition to  the  institution  from  which  the  abuse  had  eman- 
ated, and  emancipates  his  people,  all  stirred  with  German 
wrath  against  Rome,  from  Papal  authority,  and  leads 
them  on  into  that  freedom  of  the  Christian  which  is 
through  faith  alone.  As  a  result,  the  imperial  unity  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  is  broken,  and  the  way  laid  open 
to  other  kinds  of  intellectual  freedom  with  which  Luther 
might  have  had  scant  sympathy. 

-   ^  ! 

Ill 

The  dynamic  quality  of  religion  is  exhaustless.  Man's 
conception  of  relationship  to  the  divine  Might,  on  Which 
or  Whom  his  life  and  eternal  destinies  depend,  constantly 
renews  and  manifests  itself  in  all  his  faculties;  it  moulds 
his  purposes  and  inspires  his  action.  It  seems  to  be  the 
energy  of  God  in  man.  It  was  so  in  Paul,  so  in  Augustine, 
in  Anselm,  Bernard,  Francis.  It  was  so  in  Luther. 
There  was  a  rebirth  of  Christianity  in  all  these  men. 
Luther  had  no  more  doubt  than  Paul  that  a  personal 
revelation  of  God  had  come  to  him,  and  a  divine  call;  and 
that  Christ  was  actually  reborn  in  him.  The  last  thought 
might  have  come  to  him  from  the  Theologia  Deiitsch  as 
well  as  from  his  greatest  teacher,  Paul,  who  in  another 
than  a  mystic  sense  was  likev/ise  reborn  in  Luther.  Once 
more  the  power  of  the  Gospel  was  shown,  energizing  and 
directing  the  nature  and  faculties  of  Luther,  and  spending 
its  surplus  force  in  the  picturesque  doings  of  Anabaptists 


232  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

for  example,  and  the  Peasants'  War,  where  it  worked 
along  with  other  causes. 

Luther  was  guided  more  directly  by  Paul  than  by  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Yet  he  deemed  himself  to  be  fol- 
lowing all  the  Scriptures,  assuredly  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, assuredly  the  passion  of  the  Psalmist,  assuredly 
the  teachings  of  his  Lord  in  the  four  Gospels.  Besides 
his  almost  superhuman  grasp  of  Paul,  he  continued  the 
strain  of  Gospel  piety  which  appears  in  mediaeval  saints. 
He  says  substantially  in  his  Table  Talk:  Let  no  one 
stumble  over  the  simple  tales  in  Scripture;  they  are  the 
very  words  and  works  and  judgments  of  God.  This  is 
the  book  that  makes  fools  of  little  wiselings.  Thou  shalt 
find  in  it  the  angels  who  guided  the  shepherds  and  the 
swaddling  clothes  and  cradle  in  which  Jesus  lay:  mean  and 
wretched,  but  how  precious  the  treasure,  Christ,  which 
lies  in  them.  These  phrases  might  be  Bernard's  as  well 
as  Luther's,  and  so  might  be  many  passages  in  Luther's 
letters.  Do  we  not  almost  hear  Bernard  in  the  following 
to  Spalatin,  written  in  15 19:  Quicumque  velit  salubriter 
de  Deo  cogitare  aut  speculari,  prorsus  omnia  postponat 
praeter  humanitatem  Christi.  Hanc  autem  vel  agentum 
vel  patientem  sibi  praefigat,  donee  dulcescat  ejus  benign- 
itas.*^  Again :  thou  shalt  find  peace  only  in  Him,  through 
faithful  despairing  of  thyself  and  thy  work  —  per  fiducia- 
lem  desperationem  tui  et  operum  tuorum.*^  One  notes 
that  this  sweet  piety,  whether  of  Francis,  Bernard,  or 
Luther,  is  filled  with  faith. 

In  his  study  of  the  Bible,  Luther  sought  the  veritable 
meaning  of  the  text.  The  downrightness  of  his  nature 
would  have  led  him  to  this,  even  if  he  had  not  been  in- 
fluenced by  the  comments  of  Nicholas  de  Lyra  and  Johann 
Wessel.^  More  and  more  he  was  repelled  by  the 
strained  and  twisted  applications  which  were  made  to 
support  those  teachings,  practices,  or  institutions  of  the 
papal   church   which   he    found   himself   revolting   from. 

«  De  Wette's  Edition,  Vol.  I,  p.  226. 

"'^  To  Spenlein,  ib.  p.  17;  Of.  to  Scheurl,  ib.  p.  49,     Letters  of  1516  and 
1517. 
8  Ante,  p.  189-191. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  233 

Yet  no  more  than  Erasmus  did  he  give  over  the  allegor- 
ical interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  even  of  the 
New.  But  he  looked  In  the  New  Testament  for  confirm- 
ation of  allegorical  interpretations  of  words  and  state- 
ments in  the  Old.^  He  makes  fewer  references  to  alle- 
gorical meanings  in  his  later  writings,  referring  to  him- 
self as  early  as  December,  1522,  as  "  being  already  less 
curious  regarding  allegories."  ^^  To  be  sure,  like  any 
student  of  the  Scriptures,  In  any  age,  with  doctrines  to 
uphold,  Luther  could  bend  the  meaning  to  his  own 
support. 

Inevitably  Luther  judged  the  different  books  of  the 
Bible  by  their  bearing  on  the  Gospel  of  faith  in  Christ,  as 
he  grasped  it.  Paul's  Epistles  were  his  chief  armory. 
In  the  preface  to  his  New  Testament  of  1522  he  puts 
John's  Gospel  and  Paul's  Epistles,  especially  to  the 
Romans,  above  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  which  tell  of 
Christ's  works.  In  comparison  James's  Epistle  is  dry  fod- 
der, "  eine  rechte  stroherne  Epistel."  ^^  In  the  preface 
to  Romans  in  the  same  edition,  he  says  "  Diese  Epistel  ist 
das  rechte  Llauptstiick  des  Neuen  Testaments,  und  das 
allerlauteste  Evangelium."  It  was  for  him  the  great  ex- 
position of  faith,  which  he  thus  characterizes  in  the  same 
preface:  "  Faith  is  a  divine  work  in  us  that  changes  and 
regenerates  us  as  from  God,  and  kills  the  old  Adam,  and 
makes  us  into  different  men  .  .  .  and  brings  the  Holy 
Spirit  with  it." 

The  Psalter  moved  him  strongly.  In  his  Preface  to  it 
(1528)  he  holds  it  as  the  mirror  of  the  Church  and  of 
the  storm-tost  Christian  soul  driven  by  anxiety  and  fear. 
Every  soul  can  find  apt  counsel  in  the  Psalter;  can  there 
find  itself  expressed:  "  In  fine,  if  thou  wouldst  see  the 
Holy  Christian  Church  painted  in  living  form  and  color 
.  .  .  take  the  Psalter,  and  thou  hast  a  clear  pure  mirror 
showing  thee  Christendom.     Thou  wilt  also  see  thyself 

9  See    generally   the    argumentation    in    Fom   Pdpsithum    zu    Rom,    etc. 
(1520). 

10  Letter  to  Spalatin,  De  Wette,  II,  p.  267.     Cf.  to  the  same,  ib.  II,  356. 

11  This    preface    was   omitted    from    later    editions.     In    the    preface    to 
James's  Epistle,  he  said  it  was  not  the  work  of  an  Apostle. 


234  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

therein,  and  find  the  true  '  know  thyself  '  and  God  and  all 
Creatures." 

Later  in  life,  In  his  Table  Talk  he  says  that  the  Psalms, 
St.  John's  Gospel  and  Paul's  Epistles  are  the  best  to 
preach  from  when  opposing  heretics;  but  for  the  ordinary 
man  and  for  young  people,  Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke 
are  best.  Luther  grasped  the  Scriptures  very  humanly, 
with  all  sides  and  faculties  of  his  nature.  Says  he,  also 
In  his  Table  Talk,  one  must  not  attempt  to  weigh  and  un- 
derstand them  through  our  reason  alone;  but  meditate 
upon  them  diligently  with  prayer.  He  had  read  the  Bible 
through  twice  each  year,  for  many  years,  and,  as  if  it  were 
a  tree,  had  shaken  each  one  of  its  branches  and  twigs,  and 
every  time  some  apples  or  pears  had  fallen  to  him.  He 
felt  the  exhaustlessness  of  meaning  in  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

In  his  address  to  his  Augustines  at  Wittenberg  on  the 
Misuse  of  the  Mass,  Luther  said,  "  Scripture  cannot 
err,  and  who  believes  it  cannot  sin  in  his  life."  But  while 
he  held  this  large  view  of  its  inerrancy,  and  especially  of 
Its  infallible  presentation  of  the  Gospel  of  faith,  he  did 
not  hold  meticulously  to  the  inerrancy  of  the  letter  of 
every  statement  in  it. 

The  authority  of  the  pope  was  the  real  point  at  issue 
between  Luther  and  the  papal  church.  He  v/rites  of  his 
Leipzig  disputation,  "  if  only  I  would  not  deny  the  power 
of  the  pope,  they  would  readily  have  come  to  an  accord 
with  me."  ^^  But  even  he  who  was  coming  to  the  realiza- 
tion that  he  feared  no  man,  felt  the  strain  and  danger  of 
his  situation.  He  implores  the  Emperor  not  to  condemn 
him  unheard  ^^  and  exclaims  to  his  friend  Spalatin :  "  It 
Is  hard  to  dissent  from  all  prelates  and  princes;  but  there 
Is  no  other  way  to  escape  hell  and  the  divine  wrath."  ^* 
After  much  thought  and  ample  notice  to  his  friends,  he 
burnt  the  papal  bull  against  him,  and  the  Canon  Law  as 
well,  before  the  city  church  of  Wittenberg  on  the  tenth  of 

12  To  Spalatin,  1519,  De  Wette,  I,  p.  287. 

13  Jan'y,  1520.     De  Wette,  I,  p.  393. 
1*  Nov.,  1520,  ib.  I,  p.  521. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  235 

December,  1520.  As  he  wrote  to  Staupitz,  he  did  it  in 
"  trembling  and  prayer,  but  afterwards  felt  better  over 
it  than  over  any  act  in  all  my  life."  ^^ 

He  was  and  always  remained,  opposed  to  resisting  au- 
thority with  arms  ^^ ;  but  he  had  become  convinced  that  he 
and  every  one  who  would  be  saved  must  fight  to  the  last 
—  though  not  with  arms  —  against  the  papal  laws. 
Though  fearing  no  man,  he  stood  in  awe  before  the  be- 
liefs in  which  he  had  been  educated,  abandoning  portions 
of  them  only  under  the  compulsion  of  his  reason,  his  con- 
science, and  his  circumstances;  and  still  he  felt  anxious 
over  what  he  had  done,  as  appears  in  paragraphs  intended 
to  fortify  the  consciences  of  his  Wittenberg  Augustines 
placed  at  the  beginning  of  his  tract  upon  the  Misuse  of 
the  Mass,  written  at  the  Wartburg  in  1 521.  It  is  noth- 
ing that  the  world  and  all  the  priests  of  Baal  dub  us 
heretics  and  cry  out  on  us,  says  he  in  substance;  but  we 
hear  the  cry  of  our  own  consciences,  stricken  with  fear  of 
God's  judgment  lest  we  be  leading  men  astray.  Even  I 
was  in  doubt  and  fear.  Could  I  alone  be  right,  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  mistaken?  Till  God  strengthened 
me,  and  made  my  heart  as  a  rock  against  which  the 
waves  of  apprehension  beat  in  vain. 

He  had  need  of  all  his  strength  for  his  journey  to 
Worms  and  his  defense  before  the  Emperor  and  the 
princes  and  prelates  of  Germany.  A  papal  sentence,  of 
death  in  this  world  and  damnation  afterwards,  lay  on 
him;  and  the  Emperor  Charles  who  sent  him  a  safe-con- 
duct commanded  the  burning  of  his  books.  John  Huss 
had  been  burnt  at  Constance,  whither  he  had  gone  under 
an  emperor's  safe-conduct.  The  Church  held  no  faith 
with  a  condemned  heretic.  Luther  had  cause  to  tremble. 
His  natural  anxieties  resulted  in  repeated  illness.  Yet 
his  resolve  and  faith  were  unshaken;  and  he  assured  the 
Elector  that  he  would  go  if  he  had  to  be  carried.  His 
journey  in  fact  was  made  in  a  covered  wagon.     Cities 

15  De  Wette,  I,  p.  542. 

16  See  e.g.  to  Spalatin,  1521,  De  Wette,  I,  p.  543. 


236  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

along  the  route  received  him  with  acclaim.  He  was  a 
hero,  and  the  pope  was  hated.  He  writes  ahead  from 
Frankfort : 

"  We  are  coming,  my  Spalatin,  although  Satan  has  tried  to  stop 
me  with  more  than  one  illness.  All  the  way  from  Eisenach  I  have 
been  ailing,  and  am  still  ailing,  in  ways  quite  new  to  me.  And 
Charles's  mandate  [against  his  books],  I  know,  has  been  published 
to  frighten  me.  But  Christ  lives,  and  we  will  enter  Worms  in 
spite  of  all  the  gates  of  hell  and  powers  of  the  air.  I  send  a  copy 
of  the  Emperor's  letter.  It  seems  best  to  write  no  more  letters  till, 
on  my  arrival,  I  see  what  should  be  done,  lest  w^e  puff  up  Satan, 
whom  my  purpose  is  rather  to  terrify  and  contemn.  Therefore 
arrange  a  lodging.     Farewell."  ^^ 

The  papal  legate,  Aleander,  tells  of  Luther's  arrival 
at  the  city  gates,  sitting  in  a  wagon  with  three  companions, 
and  protected  by  a  hundred  horsemen.  As  he  alighted  at 
his  lodging  near  the  Saxon  Elector,  he  looked  round  with 
those  demon  eyes  of  his,  and  said  "  God  be  with  me." 
A  priest  ecstatically  threw  his  arms  about  him.  He  was 
soon  visited  by  many  personages,  and  people  ran  to  see 
him.     So  far,  in  substance,  Aleander. 

On  appearing  before  the  Diet  on  the  first  day  Luther 
seems  to  have  hesitated  in  the  presence  of  so  august  and 
largely  hostile  an  assembly;  but  the  next  day  he  made  a 
well  ordered  argument  and  spoke  courageously  in  defense 
of  his  books  and  his  convictions,  to  the  wrath  of  the 
papal  legates  who  protested  that  an  excommunicated 
heretic  had  no  right  to  defend  his  heresies.  As  for  the 
Emperor,  his  face  was  against  Luther  w^hatever  might 
be  his  own  relations  with  the  pope.  For  in  his  office 
Charles,  equally  with  the  pope,  was  heir  to  the  Roman 
tradition  of  imperial  unity.  To  one  as  to  the  other, 
Luther  could  only  be  a  rebel;  and  the  Emperor,  an  intense 
Catholic,  was  already  started  on  his  career  of  arch  ex- 
terminator of  heretics,  in  his  dominions  in  the  Low 
Countries,  where  he  had  the  power  that  he  lacked  in 
German  lands.  He  and  the  papal  party  would  quickly 
have  put  an  end  to  Luther's  words  and  life,  if  Luther  had 

17  April  14,  1521,  De  Wette,  I,  p.  586. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  237 

not  had  the  protection  of  the  Saxon  Elector  and  the  sup- 
port of  a  large  proportion  of  all  classes  In  Germany. 

In  spite  of  commands,  exhortations  and  persuasion, 
within  the  Diet  and  without,  Luther  refused  to  recant, 
or  materially  to  retract  his  statements.  He  left  Worms 
as  he  had  entered  It,  an  excommunicated  heretic.  The 
Emperor's  ban  followed  quickly,  proclaiming  him  an  out- 
law. But  from  these  cumulative  dangers  he  was  spirited 
away,  out  of  the  sight  and  ken  of  enemies  and  friends 
alike,  to  a  benignant  confinement  at  the  Wartburg,  the 
historic  castle,  then  belonging  to  the  Saxon  Elector. 
There  he  stayed  for  eight  months,  translating  the  New 
Testament,  writing  letters  and  tracts  to  exhort  trembling 
or  over-zealous  friends,  fighting  the  devil  as  well  as  mor- 
tal enemies,  and  advancing  in  his  faith  from  strength  to 
strength. 

It  was  Irksome  to  be  confined,  and  bodily  withheld 
from  the  strife.  Half  humorously,  half  lugubriously, 
Luther  dates  his  letters,  "  in  the  region  of  the  birds," 
"  on  my  Patmos,"  "  from  my  hermitage."  Vehemently 
he  works;  or,  again,  the  perturbations  of  his  soul  and  body 
prostrate  his  energies.  "  Now  for  a  week,  I  do  neither 
write,  nor  pray,  nor  study,  vexed  with  temptations  of  the 
flesh  and  other  Ills,"  he  writes  Melanchthon.^^  His 
words  had  already  become  a  power  with  his  friends,  a 
terror  to  others.  Albrecht,  archbishop  of  Mainz,  to 
relieve  whose  impecunlousness  Tetzel  had  sold  indul- 
gences, now  bethought  him  to  do  a  little  business  quietly 
In  that  line  at  Halle.  The  Elector  had  no  wish  to  make 
an  enemy  of  the  princely  primate  of  Germany,  and  know- 
ing that  Luther  was  breathing  forth  threatenings,  asked 
him  to  keep  silence.  Neither  then,  nor  ever  afterwards, 
did  Luther  hold  his  peace  when  speech  was  called  for; 
and  the  vigor  of  his  threats  of  public  attack,  made  in  a 
private  letter  to  the  archbishop, ^^  caused  the  latter  to 
stop  the  sale  and  excuse  himself  to  Luther  In  a  letter. 

18  De  Wette,  11,  p.  22. 

19  De  Wette,  II,  pp.  1 12-114.     So  Luther  did  not  publish  his  Against 
the  Idol  at  Halle. 


238  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

In  fact  while  at  the  Wartburg,  as  before  and  after- 
wards through  his  life,  Luther  worked  and  wrote  tor- 
rentially.  There  were  years  when  his  productions  mon- 
opolized the  presses  of  Germany.  At  the  Wartburg  he 
seems  first  to  have  completed  a  little  writing  which  showed 
how  dearly  he  still  loved  the  teachings  and  traditions  of 
the  Church.  It  was  a  charming  piece  for  the  Elector,  On 
the  Song  of  Praise  of  the  holy  Virgin  Mary,  called  the 
Magnificat.  He  honors  her  sinlessness,  and  almost 
prays  to  her,  saying  at  the  beginning,  "  May  the  same  gen- 
tle Mother  procure  me  the  spirit  to  interpret  her  song 
aright,"  and  at  the  end,  "  This  may  Christ  grant  us 
through  the  Intercession  of  his  dear  Mother  Mary." 

Paying  this  tribute  to  the  clinging  sentiments  of  reli- 
gious habit,  Luther  proceeded  none  the  less  manfully  to 
disembarrass  his  mind  of  matters  which  more  loudly  de- 
manded discarding.  He  wrote  a  tract  On  the  power 
of  the  pope  to  compel  Confession,  which  he  sent  v/ith 
an  Inspiring  letter  to  a  doughty  patron  and  protector  of 
his,  the  great  swashbuckler  knight  Von  Slckingen.-^  He 
then  took  up  the  marriage  of  priests,  on  which  Carlstadt 
and  Melanchthon  had  already  taken  a  radical  stand. 
Luther  fundamentally  agreeing  with  them,  still  wished  to 
test  their  grounds  more  thoroughly.  Next  he  undertook 
to  settle  the  burning  question  whether  monastic  vows 
were  binding.  He  sent  his  Opinion  to  his  own  father, 
who  had  so  bitterly  opposed  his  purpose  to  become  a 
monk,  and  with  It  a  telling  letter,-^  in  which  he  recalls 
the  anxieties  and  the  sudden  fear  that  drove  him  into  the 
convent,  and  his  father's  doubt  whether  it  was  not  a 
crazed  delusion:  —  and  now,  dear  father,  "  wilt  thou  still 
drag  me  out?  For  still  art  thou  father,  and  I  am  son,  and 
all  vows  mean  nothing.  .  .  .  But  the  Lord  has  forestalled 
thee,  and  has  himself  delivered  me.  For  what  signifies 
it,  whether  I  wear  the  cowl  or  lay  It  off?     Cowl  and  ton- 

20  De  Wette,  II,  13. 

21  De  Wette,  II,  100  sqq. —  also  printed  as  a  preface  to  Luther's  Urtheil 
fiber  die  Monchsgeliibde. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  239 

sure  do  not  make  the  monk.  '  All  Is  yours/  says  Paul, 
'  and  you  are  Christ's' ;  and  why  should  I  be  the  cowl's  and 
not  the  cowl  rather  be  mine?  My  conscience  has  become 
free,  which  means  that  I  have  become  free.  So  I  am  a 
monk  and  yet  no  monk,  a  new  creature,  not  the  pope's, 
but  Christ's."  Satan  foresaw  what  great  scathe  he  was 
to  suffer  from  me,  and  attempted  my  ruin.  But  from 
this  book  "  thou  mayest  see  through  what  signs  and  won- 
ders Christ  has  loosed  me  from  the  monk's  vow  and 
given  me  such  freedom  that,  while  he  has  made  me  the 
servant  of  all,  I  am  subject  to  none  but  him  alone.  For 
he  Is  my  bishop,  directly  over  me,  my  abbot,  prior,  lord, 
father  and  teacher.    Henceforth  I  recognize  none  other." 

In  this  tract,  which  was  written  In  Latin,  Luther  main- 
tains that  the  monk's  vow  is  opposed  to  God  and  scrip- 
ture; for  whatever  goes  beyond  the  words  of  Christ  is 
man's  Invention.  To  turn  that  which  was  at  most  a 
counsel  in  the  Gospel  Into  a  command,  is  to  go  beyond 
and  against  the  Gospel.  The  monastic  vow  is  opposed  to 
faith,  and  to  the  freedom  wherein  faith  makes  us  free 
from  all  things.  It  Infringes  the  gospel  freedom  set  by 
God,  which  is  no  less  a  sin  than  to  break  any  other  com- 
mandment. It  is  opposed  to  love  of  neighbor,  to  obedi- 
ence to  parents,  and  to  natural  reason.  "  Those  who 
make  their  vows  intending  to  become  good  and  blessed 
through  this  way  of  life,  to  blot  out  their  sins  and  gain 
riches  through  good  works,  are  as  godless  Jews  fallen 
from  faith." 

At  the  same  time  Luther  made  ready  another  tract,  On 
the  Misuse  of  the  Mass,  from  which  certain  opening 
reflections  have  already  been  taken.  It  presented  Luth- 
er's conception  of  the  priesthood  and  the  sacrament  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  maintaining  that  this  sacra- 
ment is  not  a  sacrifice  offered  to  God  in  propitiation  for 
our  sins,  but  Is  received  from  Him  in  token  of  His  free 
forgiveness.  There  is  one  priest,  who  is  Christ;  the  New 
Testament  ordains  no  visible  priesthood  beside  him;  but 
all  Christians  are  priests  with  Christ.     Consequently  the 


240  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

papal  priesthood  Is  nothing,  their  acts  and  laws  arc  noth- 
ing; and  the  Mass  which  they  call  a  sacrifice  is  sheer  idol- 
atry, a  fabrication  added  to  God's  Testament. 

It  is  hard  for  weak  consciences  to  think  that  so  many 
people  have  been  damned  in  this  idolatry,  despite  all  the 
churches  and  cloisters  where  myriad  daily  masses  are  said; 
and  they  are  tempted  to  believe  the  mass  is  instituted 
by  God  because  it  has  been  instituted  by  the  Church.  But 
the  Church  did  not  institute  it,  since  the  Church  ordains 
nothing  beyond  God's  word;  and  whatever  body  makes 
the  attempt  Is  no  Church.  Let  us  have  done  with  the 
pope's  priesthood  and  their  mass;  and  to  the  argument 
that  ordained  power  has  authority  to  command,  make 
reply:  Go  and  take  counsel  with  the  blasphemers  of  those 
Gomorrahs,  Paris  and  Louvain;  we  maintain  with  the 
power  of  the  Gospel,  that  when  ye  rule  without  God's 
word,  ye  are  the  devil's  priests,  and  your  office  and  priest- 
hood is  the  work  of  the  devil  to  crush  out  the  Spirit  and 
Word  of  God. 

The  time  was  at  hand  when  Luther  no  longer  could 
endure  to  write  and  fight  from  his  retreat.  Disturbances 
among  his  own  WIttenbergers  demanded  his  presence  and 
his  voice.  His  more  radically  minded  followers  —  whom 
Luther  declared  hurt  him  more  than  all  his  enemies  and 
all  the  devils  too  ^^  —  had  rudely  gone  to  work;  and 
fanatics  were  come  from  Zwickau,  who  would  overthrow 
all  things.  Wittenberg  was  becoming  a  scandal;  the  town 
council  petitioned  him  to  return.  The  Elector,  himself 
troubled  by  many  thorny  questions,  felt  still  greater 
anxiety  lest  Luther's  return  should  embroil  him  w^Ith  the 
Emperor  and  endanger  the  reformer's  life:  demands 
would  be  made  for  his  surrender,  to  his  certain  death. 
So  at  least  It  seemed  to  the  Elector,  and  he  wrote  asking 
Luther  not  to  come.  Luther  did  not  tarry  at  the  Wart- 
burg  to  reply,  but  answered  from  the  road  to  Wittenberg. 
His  letter  respectfully  explained  the  urgency  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  then  proceeded:  "As  for  my  own  fate,  most 

22  De  Wette,  II,  p.  165. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  241 

gracious  Lord,  I  answer  thus:  Your  Electoral  Grace 
knows,  or  if  not,  will  be  informed  by  this,  that  I  have 
received  the  Gospel  not  from  men,  but  solely  from 
Heaven,  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  well  might 
and  henceforth  will  declare  and  subscribe  myself  a  ser- 
vant and  evangelist.  If  I  have  submitted  to  be  heard  and 
judged,  it  has  been  through  no  doubt  of  this,  but  from 
over-humility  in  order  to  win  others.  Now  I  see  my 
humility  bringing  the  Gospel  into  contempt,  and  that  the 
devil  will  take  the  whole  place,  where  I  intended  to  give 
him  but  a  palm;  so  my  conscience  compels  me  to  act 
otherwise." 

"  I  have  done  enough  for  your  Electoral  Grace  by  retiring  for  a 
year,  obediently.  For  the  devil  knows  that  I  have  not  done  this 
from  cowardice.  He  saw  it  in  my  heart,  as  I  entered  Worms,  that 
had  there  been  as  many  devils  there  as  tiles  on  the  roofs,  I  would 
have  sprung  into  their  midst  gladly.  Duke  George  ^^  is  not  the 
equal  of  a  single  devil.  And  since  the  Father  of  all  mercies  has 
through  his  Gospel  made  us  glad  lords  over  all  the  devils  and  death, 
so  that  we  may  call  him  our  own  dear  Father,  your  Grace  will  see 
what  shame  we  should  put  on  Him  if  we  did  not  trust  Him  to 
make  us  lords  over  the  anger  of  Duke  George.  .  .  . 

"  These  things  I  have  written  to  your  Grace  so  that  your  Grace 
may  know  that  I  come  to  Wittenberg  under  a  higher  guard  than 
that  of  the  Prince  Elector.  Nor  do  I  propose  to  seek  that  pro- 
tection of  your  Electoral  Grace.  Rather  it  is  I  that  would  protect 
you.  Indeed  if  I  knew  that  your  Grace  could  and  would  protect 
me,  I  would  not  come.  In  this  business  the  sword  should  not  and 
cannot  either  advise  or  aid ;  God  must  do  all  by  Himself.  There- 
fore he  who  has  most  faith  will  best  protect.  And  since  I  perceive 
your  Electoral  Grace  to  be  still  weak  in  faith,  I  cannot  find  in  you 
the  man  who  could  protect  or  save  me." 

The  letter  proceeds  further  to  absolve  the  Elector 
from  responsibility  for  Luther's  safety;  and  begs  him 
not  to  oppose  the  carrying  out  of  any  imperial  edict.  For 
himself,  Christ  has  not  so  taught  him  that  he  should  be 
a  burden  to  another  Christian.  "  Herewith  I  commend 
your  princely  Electoral  Grace  to  the  grace  of  God.   .   .  . 

23  Duke  George,  ruler  over  the  other  parts  of  Saxony,  an  earnest  Catholic, 
and  Luther's  enemy. 


242  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

If  your  Grace  believed,  you  would  see  the  glory  of  God; 
since  you  do  not  yet  believe,  you  have  seen  nothing."  ^* 

So  Luther  made  his  way  to  Wittenberg.  The  Elector, 
better  than  his  protest,  continued  his  protection.  If 
Luther's  word  had  first  unchained  the  tempest  which  so 
rudely  was  throwing  down  the  old  forms  and  ceremonies 
of  worship,  his  word  and  presence  now  restored  peace. 
Mightily  had  he  grasped  for  himself,  and  set  forth  for 
others,  Paul's  great  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith. 
Now  with  equal  power  and  effect  he  set  forth  another 
side  of  the  great  apostle's  teaching,  that  it  is  not  the 
Christian's  part  to  cause  his  weaker  brother  to  stumble. 
He  preached  sermons  on  eight  successive  days,  and  cast 
a  spell  of  order  and  toleration  over  the  city. 

In  the  first  sermon  he  pointed  out  to  his  hearers,  who 
thronged  the  large  city  church,  that  each  Christian  must 
answer  and  fight  for  himself  against  the  devil  and  death. 
Each  should  know  the  tenets  of  his  faith.  We  are  all 
children  of  wrath;  our  acts  and  thoughts  are  sinful  and  as 
nothing  in  the  sight  of  God.  But  God  gave  his  Son; 
and  at  this  point  the  preacher  briefly  recalled  the  sub- 
stance of  Christ's  gospel.  To  benefit  by  it  faith  is 
needed;  then  love  of  one  another,  in  which  his  auditors 
seemed  to  have  failed.  Patience  also  Is  required,  and 
forbearance.  Each  shall  not  insist  upon  his  own  way, 
but  yield  so  as  to  win  those  who  are  without.  No  one 
should  so  use  his  freedom  as  to  give  offense  to  those  who 
are  weak  in  faith.  You  have  surely  the  pure  word  of 
God;  act  then  soberly  and  considerately.  Our  warfare 
is  with  the  devil,  who  has  many  wiles.  Those  have  erred 
who  have  inconsiderately  swept  away  the  mass,  without 
advising  with  me  —  with  me,  who  was  called  to  preach, 
not  by  my  will,  but  against  It.  Suppose  your  taunts  to 
have  driven  some  brother,  against  his  conscience,  to  eat 
meat  on  Friday,  and  in  the  hour  of  death  he  Is  seized 
with  fear;  —  on  whose  head  falls  the  blame? 

So  speaks  Luther's  broad  human  and  Pauline  forbear- 
s' This,  perhaps  the  most  famous  of  all  Luther's  letters,  Is  printed  in 
De  Wette,  II,  137  sqq.,  and  elsewhere  very  often. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  243 

ance.  His  rock-ribbed  intolerance  will  elsewhere  strike 
us.  The  second  sermon  opens  with  the  avowal  that  the 
popish  sacrificial  mass  is  an  abomination;  but  it  is  not  for 
us  to  tear  it  out  by  the  hair;  leave  it  to  God.  Why? 
Because  /  do  not  hold  men's  hearts  as  clay  in  my  hand; 
I  can  speak  to  the  ear,  but  cannot  force  my  words  into 
their  hearts.  Let  our  words  work  free;  but  use  no  force. 
We  preach  the  truth ;  let  that  work.  Paul  came  to  Athens, 
and  saw  the  altars  of  idolatry.  Did  he  rush  to  kick  them 
over  with  his  foot?  Let  faith  be  free.  I  will  preach 
against  the  mass;  but  will  not  cast  it  out  by  force.  I 
spoke  against  indulgences,  gently,  with  the  word  of  God, 
raising  no  tumult;  and  so  I  weakened  the  papacy  more 
than  the  Kaiser  ever  did.  Blood  might  have  been  poured 
out,  had  I  done  differently. 

Monks'  vows  are  null,  affirms  the  next  sermon ;  as  null 
as  if  I  had  vowed  to  strike  my  father  in  the  face.  Yet 
to  hurry  out  of  convents  and  marry,  is  not  yet  for  all. 
It  should  be  left  to  the  conscience  of  each.  So  images 
are  useless;  but  do  ye  leave  each  man  free  to  keep  or 
reject  them.  Only  one  must  not  pray  to  them.  Let  us 
preach  that  Images  are  vanities,  but  that  no  outer  thing 
can  injure  faith. 

The  remaining  sermons  consider  points  of  contention: 
taking  the  Sacrament  into  the  communicant's  hands;  in- 
sistence upon  both  the  bread  and  wine;  the  question  of 
confession.  Also  the  fruit  of  the  Sacrament  which  is 
love. 

The  incidents  of  Luther's  life  so  far  referred  to, 
with  his  words  and  writings,  tempt  us  to  further  efforts 
to  place  him  in  proper  categories  of  appreciation  and 
form  some  estimate  of  him.  At  all  events,  he  calls  for 
emphatic  statements.  One  must  not  approach  him  mlnc- 
ingly,  nor  be  overnice.  To  be  misled  or  repelled  by 
certain  of  his  qualities  would  be  to  hesitate  over  the 
immaterial  and  tarry  with  the  Impertinent.  If  we  find 
contradictions  in  the  man  as  well  as  In  his  doctrines,  we 
should  seek  their  harmony  in  the  reaches  of  his  nature 


244  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  the  reasonings  which  there  had  their  home.  We  may 
find  the  contradictions  bound  together,  as  by  the  grace  of 
God,  into  a  mighty  personality  speaking  always  to  one 
high  argument. 

In  a  letter  to  Melanchthon,^^  Luther  says  that  his 
opponents  to  show  their  smartness  gather  contradictions 
from  his  books.  "  How  can  those  asses  judge  the  con- 
tradictions in  our  doctrine,  who  understand  neither  of  the 
contradictories?  For  what  else  can  our  doctrines  be  in 
the  eyes  of  the  wicked  than  sheer  contradiction,  since  it 
both  requires  and  condemns  works,  abolishes  and  restores 
ritual,  honors  and  reproves  the  magistrates,  asserts  and 
denies  sin?  " 

'*  I  am  a  peasant's  son,"  says  Luther,  "  my  father, 
grandfather,  and  forebears,  were  echte  Bauern.  My 
father  when  young  was  a  poor  miner;  my  mother  carried 
the  wood  on  her  back:  and  so  they  brought  us  up." 
Luther  was  a. peasant  too.  The  rank  and  ready  coarse- 
ness of  the  peasant  was  an  obvious  element  of  his  nature 
to  the  end.  It  crops  out  through  his  talk  and  writing  in 
language  absolutely  unquotable  even  for  purposes  of  illus- 
tration. It  should  not  be  compared  with  the  expressions 
of  many  an  Italian  humanist;  for  such  men  were  them- 
selves contaminate,  while  Luther's  soul,  even  as  his  life, 
was  pure.  A  juster  comparison  lies  with  the  great-natured 
Rabelais;  but  the  latter's  obscenity  is  a  thing  of  imagina- 
tive art.  Luther's  coarseness  is  never  for  its  own  sake. 
Sudden,  and  uncalled  for  as  it  sometimes  seems  to  us,  it 
was  with  him  a  natural  mode  of  speech,  the  ready  weapon 
of  anger  and  denunciation. 

For  Luther  was  a  man  of  wrath,  of  violent  and  Cyclo- 
pean indignation.  He  did  not  restrain  it;  but  poured  it 
out  on  the  offense,  as  the  wrath  of  God,  given  him  to  de- 
liver. If  he  felt  that  the  occasion  called  for  tolerance  and 
love,  he  was  persuasive  and  compelling  in  these  qualities, 
as  when  he  calmed  the  Wittenberg  disorders.  But  anger 
naturally  nerved  him  to  combat;  he  says  in  his  Table  Talk 
that  people  had  warned  him  at  the  outset  not  to  attack 

?^  July,  1530,  De  Wette,  IV,  p.  103. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  245 

the  pope:  "but  when  I  was  angry,  I  went  at  it  like  a 
blindfold  horse."  That  was  human  or  animal;  but  he  was 
also  convinced  of  the  divine  sanction  of  his  wrath:  "  The 
anger  of  my  mouth  is  not  my  anger,  but  God's  anger," 
he  cried  to  a  papal  legate.  And  there  could  not  be  enough 
of  it.  "  I  have  never  satisfied  myself  and  the  enormous- 
ness  of  my  anger  against  the  papal  monster;  nor  do  I 
think  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  satisfy  it."^^  Luther  was  a 
German,  and  understood  the  gospel  of  hate  as  well  as 
love.^^  As  the  years  passed,  neither  his  hate  nor  his 
language  became  mollified.  In  his  tract  of  1545,  Against 
the  Roman  papacy  founded  by  the  devil,  the  pope  instead 
of  the  allerheiligster  (m.ost  holy)  has  become  the  aller- 
hollischte  (most  hellish)  father,  Sanctus  Paulus  Tertius. 
That  pope,  forsooth,  has  written  to  the  Kaiser,  angrily 
maintaining  that  the  pope  alone  may  call  a  council  — 
which  shall  meet  at  Trent.  Against  such  a  council,  whose 
decrees  may  be  given,  changed  or  nullified  by  the  "  abom- 
inable abomination  at  Rome  calling  himself  the  pope," 
Luther  protests  with  vigorous  wrath,  addressing  the  pope 
always  as  "your  hellishness."  *'  I  mock  the  pope!  "  he 
exclaims.  "  Good  God,  I  am  too  slight  a  thing  to  mock 
that  which  has  mocked  the  world  to  its  perdition  for  six 
hundred  years." 

His  convinced  wrath  was  directed  not  only  against 
Rome  and  her  partisans;  but  against  any  one  whom  he 
thought  was  falsifying  God's  doctrine.  "  My  one  sole 
glory,"  he  writes  to  Melanchthon,  "  is  that  I  have  deliv- 
ered the  pure  and  unadulterated  word  of  God.  ...  I  be- 
lieve that  Zwingli  is  deserving  of  holy  hate  for  his  obstin- 
ate wickedness  against  the  holy  word  of  God."^^  Thus  he 
delivered  himself  because  of  the  Swiss  reformer's  view 
of  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.     Luther  abom- 

26  Aug.,   1545,  De  Wette,  V,  p.  754. 

27  It  seems  to  me  that  in  spirit  the  recent  German  war  harks  back  to 
Luther,  even  to  his  tract  upon  the  Freedom  of  a  Christian  man:  each  man 
outwardly  subject  to  the  powers  that  be,  bounden  in  outward  obedience; 
but  inwardly  free,  and  even  finding  in  his  inward  freedom  a  certain  de- 
tachment from  responsibility  for  the  nature  of  his  outward  acts,  com- 
manded by  the  powers  that  be. 

28  Oct.,  1527,  De  Wette,  III,  215. 


246  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

inated  transubstantiation;  but  on  no  point  of  doctrine 
did  he  insist  more  violently  than  on  the  real  presence  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  This  was  the  rock  of  con- 
troversy on  which  he  and  Zwingli  wrecked  the  cause  of 
Protestant  unity  two  years  later,  at  the  Marburg  collo- 
quy, when  Luther  sat  him  at  the  conference  table  and 
wrote  on  it  in  chalk  the  words  "  This  is  my  body,"  — 
from  which  he  would  not  swerve.  He  and  Zwingli 
reached  an  agreement  on  other  points;  but  on  this  they 
parted. 

The  German  Bucer,  an  early  admirer  of  Luther,  who 
was  destined  to  carry  on  so  excellently  the  work  of  the 
Reform  at  Strassburg,  held  views  like  Zwingli's.  Having 
him  in  mind,  Luther  wrote:  "  Satan  is  angry,  and  per- 
haps feels  that  the  Day  of  Christ  is  at  hand.  Therefore 
he  rages  so  cruelly  and  will  deprive  us  of  the  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ  through  his  trickery.  Under  the  papacy  he 
was  sheer  flesh,  making  out  that  even  monks'  cowls  were 
holy.  Now  will  he  be  sheer  spirit,  making  out  that  the 
flesh  and  word  of  Christ  are  nothing."  ^^ 

The  vehemence  of  Luther's  speech,  the  violence  of  his 
convictions,  alike  were  needed  for  the  doing  of  the  work 
he  did.  Millions  of  protests  had  been  wasted  on  the 
mighty  mammon  of  the  Church.  Soft  words  and  gentle 
persuasions  would  still  have  been  futile.  Even  the  rapier 
satire  of  Erasmus  did  not  pierce  the  monster.  No  reform 
could  be  achieved  by  anyone  so  long  as  the  authority  of 
the  pope  remained  unimpeached,  and  the  unity  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  unbroken.  Vituperation,  revolt, 
attack,  were  needed.  It  may  be,  as  men  have  thought, 
that  Luther's  breach  with  Rome  not  only  underlay  the 
spiritual  remaking  of  the  lands  which  became  Protestant, 
but  compelled  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  redeem 
itself  from  its  overgrowth  of  abuse  and  corruption. 

One  may  also  argue  for  the  need  of  Luther's  firm,  not 
to  say  violent,  insistence  upon  certain  doctrines,  that  of 
the  Real  Presence,  for  example.  For  the  man  was 
preaching  no  Erasmian  piety,  or  ethics,  of  the  obvious  ra- 

29  De  Wette,  III,  206. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  247 

tlonal  type,  which  men  might  accept  and  remain  unmoved. 
He  was  preaching  religion;  he  was  dehvering  doctrine,  not 
rationalism,  to  his  followers :  the  doctrines  which  he  held 
to  be  those  of  the  true  Christian  faith  and  necessary  for 
salvation.  "  Men  still  doubt  that  my  preaching  is  God's 
word:  that  the  true  body  and  blood  of  Christ  is  received 
in  the  Sacrament,  or  that  in  baptism  sins  are  washed 
away  by  the  blood  of  Christ.  But  that  I  teach  and  preach 
the  veritable  word  of  God,  I  will  pledge  my  soul  and  will 
die  for  it.  .  .  .  If  thou  believest  this  thou  art  blessed; 
if  thou  dost  not,  thou  art  damned."      {Table  Talk.) 

The  Protestant  religion  needed  to  be  as  stiff  and 
staunch  in  doctrine  as  the  Catholic,  and  as  imperative. 
The  world  was  not  yet  interested  in  liberalism  and  toler- 
ance. It  wanted  sure  salvation.  Luther  fought  for  and 
established  his  way  of  salvation,  and  disproved  the  Roman 
system,  showed  its  falsity,  its  inefficiency.  He  who  fol- 
lowed the  Roman  way  would  be  damned  just  as  surely, 
according  to  the  Lutheran  conviction,  as  in  Catholic  eyes 
men  would  be  damned  for  following  Luther.  Who  would 
have  cared  for  Luther's  faith  had  he  taught  or  admitted 
that  men  could  just  as  well  be  saved  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ?  It  did  not  irk  Luther  and  his  followers, 
any  more  than  it  did  the  Calvinists  or  the  Catholics,  or 
the  Mohammedans  for  that  matter,  to  think  of  many 
damned. 

Luther  wrote  a  book  of  Fourteen  Consolations  for  the 
Downcast  and  Oppressed,  and  more  especially  for  the 
Elector,  sick  and  weary  in  the  year  15 19.  In  this  work  of 
reasonable  Christian  comfort,  after  reviewing  the  ills  of 
life  and  the  pains  of  hell,  he  remarks:  "How  many 
thousand  are  in  hell's  eternal  damnation  who  have  scarce- 
ly a  thousandth  part  of  our  sins?  How  many  young  girls 
and  boys  are  there,  and,  as  we  say,  '  innocent  children  '? 
How  many  monks,  priests,  married  people,  who  seemed 
to  serve  God  all  their  lives,  and  now  are  eternally  pun- 
ished perhaps  for  a  single  sin?  For  .  .  .  the  same  jus- 
tice of  God  does  its  office  on  each  sin,  hating  and  damning 
it  in  whomsoever  found."    So,  argues  Luther,  we  realize 


248  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  boundless  pity  of  God  in  not  damning  us,  and  may  well 
be  thankful.  He  agrees  with  Augustine  that  he  would 
not  willingly  live  his  life  again,  with  its  pains  and  anx- 
ieties. He  speaks  of  the  seven  ills  and  seven  compensa- 
tions, or  goods f  such  as  a  glad  heart,  and  the  goods  of  the 
mind,  the  sense  of  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  good  things 
promised  us  through  Christ  hereafter,  which  include  sat- 
isfaction from  the  punishment  of  sin  in  the  damned,  while 
through  love  we  make  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  saints 
our  own. 

Wonderful  have  been  human  consolations  and  con- 
victions !  Without  earnest,  sincere,  terrible  convictions 
the  world  might  have  stayed  still;  they  are  also  among  the 
plagues  which  have  fallen  upon  men,  driving  those 
obsessed  by  them  to  blood  and  pious  rapine. 

So  many  elements,  so  many  potent  antecedents  came  to 
effective  combination  and  living  actuality  in  Luther.  In 
the  vortex  of  his  nature,  the  vivida  vis  of  living  life  made 
them  all  to  live  again.  He  was  altogether  alive,  and  put 
life  into  whatever  he  thought  or  said  or  wrote.  His  per- 
sonality lives  in  every  sentence,  one  is  tempted  to  say, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  at  last  of  the  enormous 
array  of  his  writings.  He  was  a  superman  in  power,  in 
energy,  in  fertile  facility.  His  reason  does  not  work 
alone,  nor  does  he  ever  act  by  impulse  merely:  his  facul- 
ties act  together  spontaneously  —  with  a  spontaneity  not 
always  calculable  for  other  men.  No  man  was  like  him. 
Not  another  one  of  the  reformers  in  his  time  or  after  him 
was  spontaneous  and  alive  as  Luther  vv^as  alive,  not 
Zwingli,  not  Calvin. 

The  strength  of  Luther's  faith,  and  the  firm  and  violent 
convictions  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  owed  some- 
thing to  his  aliveness  and  vital  imagination,  and  to  his 
sensitive  perception  and  realization  of  the  intimacies  of 
life  about  him,  and  the  immeasurable  reaches  of  existence 
which  were  as  assured  as  the  stars  above  his  head.  If 
Duke  George  was  not  the  equal  of  a  single  devil,  what 
was  he  then  compared  with  the  power  of  God  shown  in 
the   rose    which   Luther  holds    in   his   hand,    while    he 


MARTIN  LUTHER  249 

wonders  at  God's  workmanship  in  the  budding  of  trees 
in  the  spring,  and  in  the  functions  of  the  human  body. 
Consciousness  of  nature's  marvels  is  a  stay  and  comfort  in 
times  of  trial,  and  how  surely  such  for  one  who  knows 
them  to  be  creatures  of  Him  who  holds  alike  the  faithful 
man  and  all  his  enemies  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand !  Lu- 
ther likewise  loved  his  own  children  Intimately  and  imag- 
inatively. He  saw  them  as  God's  best  gifts,  and  let  his 
mind  play  around  their  child  natures,  so  ready  for  love 
and  faith.  Such  love  of  children  is  another  stay  and 
comfort. 

Wonderful  Illustrations  of  the  calm  and  happy 
assurance  thus  given  him  lie  in  letters  written  from  the 
Elector's  castle  of  Coburg  In  the  year  1530.  It  was 
an  anxious  time.  The  Imperial  diet  was  sitting  at  xA.ugs- 
burg,  with  the  hostile  Emperor  at  Its  head.  The  Saxon 
Elector  John  ^°  was  there,  with  Melanchthon  and  other 
theologians,  who  were  to  draw  up  the  presentation  of 
their  faith  known  as  the  Augsburg  Confession.  But 
Luther  was  left  at  Coburg,  a  hundred  and  thirty  miles 
away,  on  the  Saxon  border.  Being  under  the  Imperial 
ban,  he  could  not  appear  before  the  Emperor;  and  his 
presence  would  have  excited  animosity  when  the  Luther- 
ans desired  concord.  So  Luther  abode  those  anxious 
months  at  Coburg,  while  others  fought  the  fight  that  was 
his.  A  restless,  anxious  state  was  that  of  this  sequestered 
leader,  restricted  to  reports  of  the  battle,  and  to  his  letters 
of  exhortation  and  admonishment  in  return.  As  all  men 
knew,  he  would  have  yielded  nothing,  and  could  not  have 
tipped  his  speech  with  velvet,  or  "  walked  as  softly  "  as 
Melanchthon.  He  approved  of  the  "  Confession,"  If  only 
they  would  leave  pif  dallying  with  compromises  and  quit 
the  diet.  Quivering  with  Impatience,  he  writes  to  them 
in  July  to  leave,  since  they  had  spoken :  *'  Igltur  absolvo 
vos  In  nomine  Domini  ab  Isto  conventu.  Immer  wieder 
helm,  immer  helm ! !  "  ^'     Constantly  and  most  directly, 

30  Who  had  succeeded  the  Elector  Frederick  in  1525. 

31  De  Wette,  IV,  96.  Luther  often  mingles  Latin  and  German  in  his 
letters,  as  the  one  or  the  other  tongue  best  expresses  him. 


250  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

he  comforts  himself  with  his  trust  in  God,  for  himself  and 
for  his  cause,  as  we  read  in  many  a  letter  to  Melanchthon 
and  to  others.  He  assures  Melanchthon  that  the  troubles 
which  seem  to  master  the  latter  are  huge  only  through 
his  lack  of  faith.  It  is  his  learning  that  bothers  him  — 
as  if  anything  could  be  accomplished  through  useless  solici- 
tudes. He  is  his  own  direct  foe,  armed  by  the  devil 
against  himself.  "  Christ  died  once  for  our  sins,  but  for 
justice  and  truth  he  does  not  die,  but  lives  and  reigns.  If 
this  is  true,  what  fear  then  for  the  truth,  if  he  reigns? 
But,  do  you  say,  it  will  be  overthrown  by  the  anger  of 
God?  Let  us  be  overthrown  with  it,  but  not  through 
ourselves."  ^"  And  again:  "  If  we  shall  fall,  Christ  falls 
with  us,  to  wit,  he,  the  ruler  of  the  world !  So  be  it :  if  he 
shall  fall,  I  had  rather  fall  with  Christ  than  stand  with 
Caesar."  ^'^  Later  in  the  summer,  he  writes  comforting 
a  certain  Jonas :  "  Gratiam  et  pacem  in  Christo.  Ego,  mi 
Jonas,  nostram  causam  Christo  commendavi  serio 
(earnestly),  et  is  promisit  mihi  .  .  .  suam  banc  causam 
esse  et  fore :  ^^  And  he  has  promised  me  that  our  cause  is 
His  and  shall  he!'' 

Such  were  his  direct  self-heartenings.  The  more  subtle 
serenity  reflected  in  his  mind  from  God's  creation  is  illus- 
trated by  a  letter  written  in  lighter  vein  to  those  who  lived 
with  him  at  Wittenberg : 

"  To  my  dear  table-companions,  Peter  and  Jerome  Weller,  and 
Henry  Schneldewin,  and  others  at  Wittenberg,  severally  and 
jointly:  Grace  and  peace  in  Christ  Jesus,  dear  sirs  and  friends. 
I  have  received  the  letter  you  all  wrote  and  have  learned  how 
everything  is  going.  That  you  may  hear  in  turn  how  we  are  doing, 
I  would  have  you  know  that  we,  namely,  I,  Master  Veit,  and 
Cyriac,  did  not  go  to  the  diet  at  Augsburg,  but  have  come  to  an- 
other diet  instead. 

"  There  is  a  grove  just  under  our  windows  like  a  small  forest. 

32  June  27,  1530,  De  Wette,  IV,  p.  49. 

33  June  30,  1530,  ib.  p.  62. 

34  De  Wette,  IV,  p.  157.  I  leave  this  sentence  in  the  Latin.  Luther's 
Latin  letters  are  as  direct  and  forcible  as  his  German.  Perhaps  he  never 
wrote  a  finer  body  of  letters  than  those  written  from  Coburp;,  from  April 
to  October,  1530.  They  make  the  first  two  hundred  pages  of  De  Wette's 
fourth  volume. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  251 

There  the  jackdaws  and  crows  are  holding  a  diet.  They  ride  in 
and  out,  and  keep  up  a  racket  day  and  night  without  ceasing,  as  if 
they  were  all  crazy-drunk.  Young  and  old  chatter  together  in 
such  a  fashion  that  I  wonder  voice  and  breath  hold  out.  I  should 
like  to  know  whether  there  are  any  such  knights  and  warriors  still 
left  with  you.  It  seems  as  if  they  must  have  gathered  here  from 
all  the  world. 

"  I  have  not  yet  seen  their  emperor;  but  the  nobility  and  bigwigs 
constantly  flit  and  gad  about  before  our  eyes,  not  very  expensively 
clothed,  but  simply,  in  one  color,  all  alike  black,  and  all  alike  gray- 
eyed.  They  all  sing  the  same  song,  but  there  is  an  agreeable  con- 
trast between  young  and  old,  great  and  small.  They  care  nothing 
for  grand  palaces  and  halls,  for  their  hall  is  vaulted  with  the  beau- 
tiful, broad  sky,  its  floor  is  paved  with  lovely  green  branches,  and 
its  walls  are  as  wide  as  the  world.  They  do  not  ask  for  horses  or 
armor;  they  have  feathered  chariots  to  escape  the  hunters.  They 
are  high  and  mighty  lords,  but  I  don't  yet  know  what  they  are 
deciding.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn  from  an  interpreter, 
they  plan  a  great  war  against  wheat,  barley,  oats,  malt,  and  all 
sorts  of  grain,  and  many  a  one  will  show  himself  a  hero  and  do 
valiant  deeds. 

"  So  we  sit  here  in  the  diet,  listening  and  looking  on  with  great 
pleasure,  as  the  princes  and  lords  with  the  other  estates  of  the  realm 
so  merrily  sing  and  feast.  It  gives  us  special  delight  to  see  in  how 
knightly  a  fashion  they  strut  about,  polish  their  bills,  and  fall  upon 
the  defense  that  they  may  conquer  and  acquit  themselves  honorably 
against  corn  and  malt.  We  wish  them  fortune  and  health,  that 
they  may  all  be  impaled  on  a  spit  together. 

*'  Methinks  they  are  none  other  than  the  sophists  and  papists 
with  their  preaching  and  writing.  All  of  them  I  must  have  in  a 
crowd  before  me  that  I  may  hear  their  lovely  voices  and  sermons, 
and  see  how  useful  a  tribe  they  are,  destroying  everything  on  earth, 
and  for  a  change  chattering  to  kill  time. 

"  To-day  we  heard  the  first  nightingale,  for  she  was  afraid  to 
trust  our  April.  We  have  had  lovely  weather  and  no  rain  except 
a  little  yesterday.  It  is  perhaps  otherwise  with  you.  God  bless 
you !     Take  good  care  of  the  house. 

''  From  the  Diet  of  the  Malt-Robbers,  April  28,  1530. 

"  Martin  Luther,  Doctor/'  ^^ 

Two  or  three  months  later  Luther  wrote  to  Briick,  the 
Elector's  chancellor,  a  letter  of  wonderful  comforting  in- 

35  I  have  taken  this  translation  from  the  excellent  book  of  A.  C.  McGlf- 
fert,  Martin  Luther,  the  Man  and  his  Work.  The  original  is  in  De  Wette, 
IV,  p.  8.  Luther  was  so  amused  with  his  idea  of  a  Reichstag  (diet)  of 
rooks  and  daws,  that  he  repeated  it  in  several  letters. 


252  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

dicative  of  the  peace  which  he  drew  from  the  sublimities 
of  nature.  He  speaks  of  anxieties  common  to  them  both, 
and  his  trust  in  God  who  Hstens  to  their  prayers,  and  will 
forget  them  never,  and  then  says : 

"  I  have  lately  seen  two  miracles.  I  looked  out  of  the  window, 
I  saw  the  stars  in  heaven  and  the  whole  great  vault  of  God,  and 
saw  nowhere  any  pillars  on  which  the  Master  had  set  it.  Yet  the 
heavens  fell  not,  and  the  vault  stands  fast.  Now  there  are  some 
who  look  for  such  pillars,  and  gladly  would  feel  and  grasp  them. 
Because  they  cannot,  they  worry  and  tremble,  as  if  the  heavens 
would  fall  in,  just  because  they  cannot  see  and  grasp  the  pillars. 
If  they  could  grasp  them,  the  heaven  would  stand  fast! 

"  Again,  I  saw  great  thick  clouds  sweeping  over  us,  so  heavy  that 
they  seemed  like  a  great  sea;  and  I  saw  no  footing  for  them  and 
nothing  to  constrain  them.  Yet  they  did  not  fall  on  us,  but 
greeted  us  with  a  sour  face,  and  flew  away.  When  they  were  gone 
the  rainbow  shone  forth,  as  floor  and  roof,  above  us,  which  had 
held  them  —  a  weak  thin  little  floor  and  roof,  vanishing  in  the 
clouds,  and  more  like  a  ray  shining  through  painted  glass  than  a 
strong  floor.  .  .  .  Yet  it  upheld  the  weight  of  water  and  protected 
us.  Still  there  are  those  who  fearfully  regard  the  weight  of  the 
cloud  masses,  rather  than  this  thin  small  ray.  They  would  gladly 
feel  and  make  sure  of  its  strength,  and  since  they  cannot,  they 
fear  that  the  clouds  will  bring  an  eternal  Deluge  (Siindfluth). 

"  So  much  I  write  to  your  Honor  in  friendly  jest,  and  yet  not  in 
jest;  since  I  learn  with  joy  of  your  Honor's  steadfast  and  trustful 
courage  in  this  our  trial.  I  had  hoped  that  at  least  political  peace 
could  be  maintained ;  but  God's  thoughts  are  above  ours  .  .  .  and 
If  He  were  to  grant  us  peace  from  the  Kaiser,  the  Kaiser  and  not 
He  might  have  the  glory.  .  .  .  Our  rainbow  is  weak;  their  [the 
enemies']  clouds  are  mighty;  but  In  the  end  it  will  appear  whose  Is 
the  thunderbolt."  ^^ 

But  there  were  catastrophes  in  Luther's  life  more  dire 
than  any  arising  from  the  attack  of  enemies.  Against 
direct  attack  his  courage  was  invincible  and  his  faith  a 
shield.  The  tragedies  of  his  life  were  those  conditions 
or  events  which  seemed  to  show  the  futility  or  the  evil 
results  of  what  he  had  taught  and  worked  for.  Among 
such  positive  111  results  from  Luther's  point  of  view  might 
be  set  the  obstreperous  spiritual  anarchy,  as  of  Zwickau 

36  Aug.,  1530,  De  Wette,  IV,  127  sqq. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  253 

prophets  and  Anabaptists,  which  went  so  far  beyond  the 
orderly  conservative  rehgious  revolution  that  was  Luth- 
er's plan.  Yet  his  enemies  alleged,  and  Luther  feared, 
that  the  fervor  of  his  own  teachings  had  loosed  the  mis- 
guided energies  and  entered  the  abominable  opinions  of 
intellectual  radicals  like  Carlstadt  and  fanatic  anarchists 
like  Miinzer. 

Carlstadt  was  a  keenly  reasoning,  radically  minded 
man.  Lie  had  been  Luther's  associate  in  the  Leipzig  de- 
bate against  Eck  in  1521.  But  while  Luther  was  in  the 
Wartburg,  Carlstadt  became  moved  with  desire  to  set 
aside  every  religious  practice  and  convention  for  which 
he  could  not  find  direct  authority  in  Scripture.  He  was 
as  radical  in  handling  Holy  Writ,  and  disposed  to  attack 
everybody's  prejudices  and  acceptances  in  his  insistence 
upon  his  new  evangelical  way  of  living  and  worshipping. 
Luther  had  become  to  him  a  time-server  and  a  tyrant; 
while  on  his  part  he  became  an  active  thorn  In  Luther's 
flesh.  Miinzer  was  an  evangelical  anarchist,  preaching 
the  Gospel  of  God's  fiery  word  resounding  within  the  in- 
dividual soul.  Its  dictates  were  to  be  made  good  not 
merely  by  persuasion,  but  with  fire  and  sword,  as  Miinzer 
demonstrated  by  taking  up  the  peasants'  cause,  and  urging 
them  to  blood.  He  was  akin  to  the  Anabaptists,  as 
various  anarchistic  sects  were  called  who  were  for  throw- 
ing down  the  social  structure  altogether,  and  agreed  in 
little  beyond  denying  the  validity  of  infant  baptism  and 
demanding  adult  immersion,  for  the  full  cleansing  of  sin. 
They  too  took  to  the  sword,  and  largely  perished  by  it 
too,  when  the  forces  of  the  established  order,  as  well  as 
the  power  of  religious  Intolerance,  were  driven  against 
them.  But  they  spread  far  and  wide  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  Germany,  the  Low  Countries,  Switzerland,  even 
France;  the  proper  Lutherans  in  Germany  were  just  as 
anxious  as  Calvin  and  the  French  adherents  of  the  Re- 
form, to  clear  their  skirts  of  all  connection  with  the 
Anabaptist  anarchy. 

The  Peasants'  War  (1525-6)  was  worst  of  all.  Its 
distressful  causes  broke  out  repeatedly  in  blood  before 


254  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Luther's  day.  But  now  unquestionably  his  doctrine  of 
Christian  liberty  was  bearing  fruit  beyond  his  purpose 
and  intent.  Relief  from  oppression  was  the  spiritual 
freedom  which  the  peasants  sought,  and  formulated  in 
their  Articles.  These  seem  to  us  quite  reasonable,  but  in 
1525  they  meant  drastic  change.  The  harsh  rejection  of 
them  by  the  princes,  the  bloody  dispersal  of  the  peasants' 
gatherings,  aroused  fiercer  passions  in  the  sufferers,  and 
drew  Miinzer  and  other  preachers  into  a  joint  tumultuous 
movement  for  a  manhood  equality  set  on  the  prior  mass- 
acre of  magistrates  and  rulers.  Of  course  Luther  was 
appealed  to,  and  his  writings  quoted,  to  support  these 
aims.  His  first  reply  was  An  Exhortation  to  Peace,  in 
response  to  the  Twelve  Articles  of  the  Swabian  Peasants. 
He  admonished  them  to  present  their  grievances  in  an 
orderly  and  peaceful  way,  and  reminded  the  princes  too 
that  there  had  been  injustice  and  oppression  to  justify 
the  peasants'  discontent.  But  he  was  staunch  against 
mob  violence,  maintaining,  as  he  always  maintained,  that 
the  rulers  alone  could  use  the  sword  divinely  committed 
to  them.  Let  not  the  peasants  Invoke  Christ's  Gospel 
which  had  not  to  do  with  such  affairs.  If  they  were  fol- 
lowers of  Christ,  they  would  drop  their  arms  and  take 
to  prayer.  Earthly  society  is  built  on  inequalities;  the 
Christian's  liberty  touches  them  not,  but  exists  and  serves 
in  the  midst  of  them. 

Thus  Luther  was  on  the  side  of  Christian  freedom 
and  the  divine  authority  of  rulers.  He  had  spoken  moder- 
ately, so  far,  but  the  outrages  and  riots  witnessed  by  him 
soon  after,  and  the  appeal  to  his  teaching  to  justify  them, 
drove  him  mad.  In  his  pamphlet.  Against  the  Murder- 
ous and  Robbing  Mobs  of  Peasants,  he  turned  on  them 
with  fury.  He  likened  them  to  mad  dogs;  all  the  devils 
of  hell  must  have  entered  Into  them.  He  urged  the 
princes  not  to  hesitate  for  conscience's  sake,  but  to  slay 
them  without  mercy;  if  a  ruler  fighting  in  this  war  himself 
was  slain,  it  was  a  martyr's  death. 

Luther  was  a  peasant's  son;  yet,  before  this  insurrec- 
tion, he  held  a  low  opinion  of  the  common  man's  intelli- 


MARTIN  LUTHER  255 

gence.  The  spiritual  disturbance,  which  outran  so  wildly 
the  respectability  of  his  own  reforms,  confirmed  his  con- 
tempt for  the  common  people  who  were  led  so  easily 
beyond  decency  and  reason  and  the  correct  understand- 
ing of  Christ's  Gospel.  He  expressed  this  contempt  In 
his  diatribe,  Against  the  heavenly  prophets  (1524-15 25), 
saying  that  the  Common  herd  —  Herr  Omnes  —  must  be 
made  to  behave  by  the  sword  and  the  constraint  of  law, 
as  wild  beasts  are  held  In  chains  and  cages.  Although 
Luther  was  the  most  steadfast  of  men,  and  with  a  mighty 
faith  In  God,  he  and  his  reformed  religion  were  In  fact 
protected  and  preserved  by  the  favor  of  the  princely 
rulers  of  the  land.  In  return,  Luther  and  his  state-pro- 
tected Church  were  on  the  side  of  law  and  order  and  au- 
thority; and  the  spokesmen  of  that  church,  even  though 
unconsciously,  were  Influenced  by  social  and  political  con- 
siderations. 

As  was  shown  In  the  matter  of  the  fatal  bigamy  of  Land- 
grave Philip  of  Hesse.  The  political  fortunes  of  Luth- 
eran Protestantism  were  at  their  zenith  In  1540  when 
Philip,  the  ablest  of  the  Protestant  princes,  feeling  a 
resistless  desire  to  marry  a  lady-in-waiting,  wedded  her 
secretly,  but  with  the  consent  of  his  still  living  though  not 
in  all  respects  satisfactory  consort.  It  was  bigamy,  and 
a  crime  by  the  laws  of  the  Empire.  The  Landgrave  ap- 
pealed to  Luther  and  Melanchthon  to  assuage  his  con- 
science, for  he  was  a  zealous  Protestant,  and  had  long  felt 
qualms  at  the  Immoralities  to  which  the  vigor  of  his 
body  impelled  him. 

Before  this,  the  example  of  the  Patriarchs  had  led 
some  of  the  Anabaptists  to  declare  for  polygamy. 
Luther  himself  said  in  his  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the 
Church  that  bigamy  was  better  than  divorce.  He  had 
elsewhere  written  that  he  found  no  Scripture  authority 
barring  plurality  of  wives,  but  he  hoped  the  custom  would 
not  be  Introduced  among  Christians;  and  some  years  be- 
fore 1540  he  so  advised  the  Landgrave.  But  now  moved 
by  the  Landgrave's  urgent  appeal  and  presentation  of  his 
scruples,   Luther,   Melanchthon   and  Bucer   formally  ex- 


256  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

cused  and  sanctioned  his  bigamy,  but  as  an  exceptional 
case,  not  to  be  made  a  precedent,  and  if  possible  to  be 
kept  a  secret. 

This  weak  and  baneful  decision  brought  discredit  and 
disaster  on  the  Protestants.  In  connection,  however,  with 
this  failure  of  Luther  in  firmness  and  foresight,  one  may 
add  that  he  was  a  man  by  nature  sympathetic  with  the 
stress  of  bodily  desire.  His  own  life  was  absolutely  free 
from  reproach,  save,  of  course,  that  his  marriage  was  a 
deadly  sin  in  Catholic  eyes.  He  was  forty-two  years  old  in 
1525  when  it  took  place;  and  if  he  was  moved  by  natural 
need  and  impulse,  he  had  given  long  and  earnest  doctrinal 
consideration  to  the  question,  and  for  several  years  had 
held  all  men  free  to  marry  or  abstain.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  personal  desire  to  marry  influenced  his  acts  or 
doctrines.  When  he  did  marry,  he  made  a  faithful  hus- 
band and  a  loving  father.  He  was  also  a  true  lover  of 
his  friends,  a  hater  of  his  enemies.  His  speech  was  mostly 
of  religion;  but  he  could  be  a  jovial  companion,  eating  and 
drinking  like  a  German,  and  dehghting  in  song. 

To  the  Peasants'  War  and  the  Landgrave's  bigamy, 
events  which  proved  so  tragic  for  the  life  and  work  of 
Luther,  may  be  added  disappointment  over  the  result  of 
his  teaching  and  great  labors.  He  had  held  high  hopes 
that  when  men  had  been  shown  the  Gospel  truth,  and 
accepted  it,  their  lives  would  correspond;  and  there  would 
be  a  regeneration  of  the  nation.  None  such  took  place. 
Lutherans  remained  much  as  they  had  been  before;  while 
through  Lutheran  lands  worship  and  education  deterior- 
ated, because  the  old  compulsory  ordinances  were  weak- 
ened or  disturbed,  and  men  were  slack  and  negligent. 

Luther  declared  that  had  he  foreseen  the  toil  and  dan- 
ger to  come  to  him,  wild  horses  would  not  have  dragged 
him  into  the  struggle.  He  had  thought  men  sinned  from 
ignorance,  and  only  needed  to  be  shown  the  right  way  I 
He  had  not  supposed  that  the  world  would  continue  evil, 
when  the  true  gospel  had  been  preached.  He  had  no  idea 
how  men,  especially  the  clergy,  despised  God's  Word 
in  their  hearts.     Before  the  gospel  was  preached,  men's 


MARTIN  LUTHER  :i57 

hearts  were  hidden.  Christ  is  the  revealer  of  hearts;  and 
now  we  know  that  princes,  bishops,  nobles,  burghers, 
peasants,  all  are  a  lot  of  devils ! 

So  Luther  spoke  in  disappointment  and  depression. 
A  little  over  a  year  before  his  death,  when  plagued  by  the 
course  of  events,  by  sickness  in  his  family  and  his  own 
bodily  ills,  he  writes  to  a  friend  from  out  of  even  blacker 
depths:  "  Grace  and  peace  in  the  Lord.  I  write  briefly, 
my  Jacob,  lest  I  should  write  nothing  at  all,  as  if  forgetful 
of  thee.  I  am  dull,  tired,  feeble,  a  useless  old  man.  I 
have  finished  my  course;  it  remains  that  the  Lord  should 
gather  me  to  my  fathers,  and  that  worms  and  corruption 
should  have  their  due.  I  have  lived  enough,  if  it  is  to  be 
called  life.  Do  thou  pray  for  me,  that  the  hour  of  my 
passing  may  be  pleasing  to  God  and  salutary  to  myself.  I 
care  nothing  for  Caesar  and  the  whole  empire,  except  to 
commend  them  in  my  prayers  to  God.  The  world  also 
seems  to  me  to  have  come  to  the  hour  of  its  passing  away, 
and  to  have  waxed  old  like  a  garment,  as  the  Psalm  says, 
and  soon  to  suffer  change.  Amen.  There  is  no  heroic 
virtue  left  in  the  princes,  but  only  incurable  hatred  and 
dissension,  avarice  and  the  cupidity  of  profit.  So  the 
State  is  without  strength,  and  the  head  runs  the  full  course 
of  Isaiah  third.  Wherefore  no  good  can  be  hoped  for, 
unless  that  the  day  of  the  glory  of  the  great  God  and  our 
redemption  be  revealed."  ^^ 

But  Luther  had  always  assaulted  vigorously  those  evils 
which  were  the  chief  ground  of  his  depression.  Thus  in 
October,  1525,  he  informed  the  new  Elector  John  of  the 
wretched  state  of  the  parish  priests:  "  No  one  gives,  no 
one  pays.  Offerings  have  ceased,  and  parish  incomes  dim- 
inished. The  common  man  has  no  regard  for  either 
preacher  or  pastor.  Unless  your  Electoral  Grace  estab- 
lishes order  and  support  for  them,  the  clergy  will  have 
no  homes,  and  there  will  be  neither  schools  nor  scholars; 
and  God's  Word  and  service  will  fall  to  the  ground."  ^^ 

The  Elector  appointed  a  commission  to  visit  the  par- 

37  To  Jacob  Probst,  Dec,  1544,  De  Wette,  V,  p.  7703. 

38  Oct.  31,  1525,  De  V^ette,  III,  p.  39. 


258  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Ishes  and  take  action.  There  was  need.  For  if  the 
Roman  clergy,  as  Luther  said,  had  shamefully  neglected 
church  worship  and  religious  instruction,  the  condition  of 
the  churches  had  since  become  worse,  especially  in  the 
country,  where  the  peasants  seemed  to  have  lost  all  re- 
ligion. Gradually,  however,  as  may  be  read,  the  tide  of 
demoralization  was  checked  in  Saxony;  and  following  the 
example  of  the  Elector,  the  Lutheran  princes  of  Germany 
established  reformed  state  churches  in  their  domains, 
conserving  as  much  as  seemed  feasible  of  the  old  eccles- 
iastical order.  ^^ 

Sometime  after  returning  from  his  visitation  of  the 
Saxon  churches,  Luther  composed  the  Shorter  and  the 
Longer  catechisms  to  remedy  the  ignorance  of  pastors  as 
well  as  flocks.  Catholic  primers  existed,  as  well  as  man- 
uals of  preparation  for  confession  and  the  Communion.  *^ 
These  may  have  afforded  him  suggestion.  But  in  his 
hands  and  under  his  direction  the  Catechism  became  a 
most  important  means  of  instruction  in  the  Lutheran 
faith,  as  well  as  an  expository  declaration  of  its  principles 
and  substance.  The  Shorter  Catechism  opened  with  an 
exhortation  to  pastors  and  preachers  and  a  cry  to  God: 
Hilf !  lieber  Ciott !  in  this  ignorance  so  abominable  that 
many  pastors  do  not  know  the  Lord's  Prayer  or  the  Creed 
or  the  Ten  Commandments.  The  pastors  were  then  in- 
structed as  to  their  duties,  and  admonished  that  those 
among  their  flocks  who  refused  to  learn  should  be  kept 
from  the  land.  Afterwards  comes  the  substance  of  the 
Catechism,  that  which  every  good  householder  should 
impress  upon  his  household.  The  Ten  Commandments 
are  given  and  briefly  and  piously  explained;  hkewise  the 
Apostles'  Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer,  in  telling  words. 
Next  a  brief  explanation  of  the  sacraments  of  baptism 
and  the  communion;  also  short  forms  of  confession,  of 
private  prayer  and  grace  at  table;  and  forms  for  pastors 
to  use  in  marrying  and  baptising. 

The  Longer  Catechism   expands   the   matter.      Great 

39  See  chap.  XXI.  of  McGiffert's  Martin  Luther. 

^^  See  Jannsen,  Ges.  des  deutschen  Volkes,  I,  pp.  46  sqq.   (i8th  edition). 


MARTIN  LUTHER  259 

stress  is  laid  upon  the  Ten  Commandments,  which  are  so 
taken  and  expounded  as  to  include  the  compass  of  Chris- 
tian piety.  "  So  we  have  the  Ten  Commandments  as  a 
pattern  of  the  divine  doctrine,  what  we  shall  do  that  our 
whole  life  be  pleasing  to  God,  and  the  true  spring  and 
conduit  in  which  must  flow  everything  that  is  to  be  a  good 
work:  so  that  beyond  the  Ten  Commandments  no  work 
or  thing  can  be  good  and  pleasing  to  God,  however  great 
and  precious  it  may  be  before  the  world."  The  Creed, 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  sacraments  of  baptism  and  com- 
munion, with  other  matters,  are  then  given  with  lengthy 
comment.  These  two  Catechisms  became  the  vehicle 
of  Christian  instruction  in  the  Lutheran  churches,  a  func- 
tion likewise  to  be  fulfilled  by  Calvin's  Catechisms  in 
the  churches  following  the  Geneva  Reform. 

Luther  likewise  energetically  met  the  need  to  re-es- 
tablish education,  in  the  tract  To  the  Burgermasters  and 
Councillors  of  the  Cities ,  written  in  1524.  He  speaks  of 
the  general  admission  that  in  German  lands  the  high- 
schools  are  declining  and  the  convent  schools  falling  to 
pieces:  —  well  enough  that  the  latter  should  go  down  and 
that  people  should  refuse  to  send  their  children  to  such 
nests  of  the  devil.  Now,  raging  at  the  fall  of  convents, 
where  he  was  wont  to  trap  young  souls,  he  aims  at  the 
destruction  of  all  schools,  to  the  further  ensnaring  of  the 
young.  Alas !  men  give  gulden  for  the  war  against  the 
Turks,  but  do  not  see  that  they  should  give  a  hundred 
times  as  much  to  make  their  children  Christians.  I  beg 
you,  dear  friends,  to  realize  how  much  it  profits  Christ 
and  all  of  us,  to  help  the  young. 

So  Luther  speaks  of  the  need  of  education  in  order  that 
young  men  and  women  may  understand  their  faith.  The 
tract  proceeds:  if  every  burgher  now,  through  God's  mer- 
cy, has  been  released  from  iniquitous  payments  for  indul- 
gences, masses,  monks,  pilgrimages  and  the  like,  let  him 
give  part  of  this  for  schools,  where  boys  now  may  learn 
more  in  three  years  than  as  heretofore  in  forty,  when  they 
became  asses  and  blocks  in  the  cloisters.  Never  before 
has  Germany  heard  God's  word  as  it  is  now  heard.     Let 


26o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

us  then  seize  upon  that  word,  lest  it  leave  us  as  it  left  the 
Jews.  There  is  no  greater  sin  against  God  than  not  to 
teach  the  children.  Do  you  say  that  this  is  the  business 
of  parents,  not  of  town  councils?  But  what  if  the  parents 
do  not  do  It:  shall  It  then  be  neglected,  and  the  authorities 
not  have  to  answer?  Often  the  parents  are  unfit,  or  have 
no  time;  and  there  are  orphans.  What  is  to  become  of 
city  government  if  children  are  not  educated?  The  busi- 
ness of  a  town  is  not  merely  to  lay  up  wealth,  but  to  bring 
up  its  citizens  properly. 

But  someone  says,  why  learn  Latin,  Greek  and  He- 
brew, when  we  can  have  the  Scriptures  in  German?  So 
we  Germans  will  ever  be  beasts,  as  other  people  call  us. 
We  would  have  foreign  wares,  and  yet  despise  the  for- 
eign tongues  and  learning  w^hich  might  ennoble  us !  This 
is  to  continue  German  fools  and  beasts !  We  should  ac- 
cept the  gift  which  God  has  given  us,  not  without  a  pur- 
pose. He  put  his  Scriptures  in  Hebrew  and  Greek:  they 
are  holy  tongues.  "  Let  us  not  think  to  hold  the  Gospel 
unless  we  hold  the  tongues."  And,  besides  losing  the 
Gospel  from  ignorance  of  the  tongues,  we  should  become 
unable  to  write  Latin  or  German  properly.  A  dreadful 
example  is  afforded  by  those  schools  and  cloisters  where 
they  not  only  have  mislearned  the  Gospel,  but  have  fallen 
Into  a  rotten  Latin  and  German,  like  beasts.  After  apos- 
tolic times,  as  Greek  and  Hebrew  disappeared,  the  Gos- 
pel, the  Faith,  Christendom,  all  declined,  till  they  sank 
beneath  a  pope.  Now  the  resurrection  of  the  tongues  has 
brought  such  light,  that  the  world  wonders  at  the  purity 
of  our  gospel  knowledge. 

Here  Luther  points  out  that  even  Augustine  erred  In 
the  interpretation  of  the  Scripture  through  ignorance  of 
the  tongues;  while  that  greatest  of  teachers,  St.  Bernard, 
Is  often  carried  beyond  the  true  meaning.  From  lack 
of  the  tongues,  the  good  Fathers  encumbered  the  text 
with  comment  quite  beside  the  point.  "  For  as  the  sun 
Is  to  the  shadow,  so  is  the  tongue  to  all  the  Fathers' 
glosses."  They  would  have  been  happy  if  only  they  could 
have  learned  as  we  can. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  261 

Luther  proceeds  further:  though  there  were  neither 
soul,  nor  heaven,  nor  hell,  the  government  requires  the 
education  of  boys  and  girls,  in  order  that  excellent  and 
capable  men  may  govern  the  land,  and  the  women  may 
manage  their  households.  By  pleasant  methods  children 
should  be  taught  the  tongues  and  hberal  arts,  with  history, 
mathematics  and  music.  "  I  only  wish  I  had  read  more 
history  and  poetry  myself."  In  fine,  educated  people  are 
needed  for  worldly  as  well  as  spiritual  functions.  There 
should  be  libraries  for  books,  from  which  we  may  well 
omit  the  Commentaries  of  the  Jurists  on  the  Law  and  of 
the  theologians  on  the  Sentences,  as  well  as  Quaestiones 
and  monks'  sermons.  Have  the  Holy  Scriptures  first  of 
all,  in  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew  and  German,  and  if  need 
be,  other  languages;  with  the  best  interpreters.  The 
libraries  should  also  contain  books  which  aid  linguistic 
studies;  and  the  poets  and  orators,  heathen  and  Christian, 
Greek  and  Latin.  One  learns  grammar  from  them.  Also 
text-books  of  the  liberal  arts,  of  law  and  medicine;  with 
chronicles  and  histories,  which  preserve  good  tales. 

It  behoved  Luther  to  urge  the  reinstatement  of  educa- 
tion. For  the  Lutheran  revolt,  reformation,  awakening, 
however  one  may  call  it,  troubled  the  universities,  which 
needed  troubling  then  as  always,  to  keep  their  waters 
fresh;  it  also  distracted  the  attention  of  students  from 
their  humane  studies,  and  drew  their  spirits  into  the 
maelstrom  of  religious  disturbance  and  revival,  to  the 
temporary  dislocation  of  all  other  intellectual  interests. 
Erasmus  was  not  alone  in  saying,  "  Wherever  Lutheran- 
ism  reigns,  there  is  an  end  to  letters.  Yet  these  men 
have  been  nourished  and  helped  by  letters." 

Luther's  revolt  from  papal  authority  and  his  reformed 
faith  did  not  spring  from  humanism  and  arise  in  human- 
istic circles  as  clearly,  or  to  the  same  degree,  as  the  Re- 
form in  France.  Nevertheless  Erfurt  with  its  university, 
where  Luther  received  much  of  his  education,  was  humane 
and  liberal;  and  there  he  associated  with  as  ardent  human- 
ists as  Germany  afforded.  He  was  moderately  read  in 
the  classics;  but  such  classical  allusions  as  may  be  found 


262  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

through  his  writings  seem  largely  taken  from  the 
Adagia  of  Erasmus.  Yet  even  in  France,  the  Re- 
formed religion,  as  it  became  more  sternly  conscious  of  its 
principles  and  aims,  drew  apart  from  humanism,  natur- 
ally, since  humanism  in  the  main  was  pagan,  or  at  least  of 
this  world,  and  the  Reform  was  bent  on  Christian  salva- 
tion. Likewise,  Luther,  with  the  impulses,  energies,  pur- 
poses of  his  dominantly  religious  nature  set  upon  the 
proof  and  vindication  of  his  faith,  could  not  possibly  be 
interested  in  classical  studies  for  their  own  sake.  Nor' 
was  he  a  man  that  was  likely  to  maintain  Intimate  and 
trusted  relations  with  those  whose  aims  and  Interests  were 
quite  different  from  his  own.  On  their  side,  the  human- 
ists discovered  that  Luther's  ways  and  Luther's  interests 
were  not  theirs.  They  were  free-minded  men  and  patri- 
otic Germans,  who  disliked  the  papal  church  as  unfriendly 
to  liberal  studies  and  oppressive  to  Germany.  The  most 
typical  production  of  these  humanists  was  the  book  of 
Letters  of  Obscure  Men^  indicted  in  the  Reuchlin  contro- 
versy, a  controversy  which  was  altogether  thelrs."^^ 

But  Germans  who  were  devoted  to  liberal  studies  were 
not  alike  in  other  respects,  nor  moved  by  the  same  mo- 
tives. Beyond  this  common  taste,  there  was  little  like- 
ness between  Ulrich  von  Hutten  and  Mutlanus.  When 
Luther  had  posted  his  Theses,  and  afterwards  defied 
Rome  both  as  a  German  and  a  true  believing  and  enlight- 
ened Christian,  his  cause  attracted  the  sympathies  of 
humane  scholars  and  roused  the  truculent  enthusiasm  of 
such  a  one  as  Hutten.  Hutten  lived  long  enough  to 
quarrel  with  Erasmus,  but  his  violent  anti-papal  soul  found 
no  reason  to  draw  back  from  Luther,  and  would  rather 
have  urged  the  Wittenberger  on  to  bloodier  war  against 
the  Roman  tyrant.  Other  humane  scholars,  Melanch- 
thon,  chief  among  them,  merged  themselves  enthusiasti- 
cally In  the  Lutheran  movement,  or  kept  manfully  by  its 
side.  But  quite  as  many,  caring  for  letters  above  all 
things,  and  fearing  to  Imperil  their  temporal  fortunes  and 
eternal  souls  In  warfare  with  the  Church,  drew  back  from 

-ii  Ante,  Chapter  VI. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  263 

the  Reformer,  choosing  to  remani  in  the  bosom  of  the 
mother  who  had  nourished  their  souls,  and  might  either 
clothe  or  castigate  their  tender  bodies. 

The  body  of  Erasmus  was  extremely  tender,  and  Its 
wants  Insistent.  Nor  was  he  inclined  toward  strenuous 
defense  of  any  cause  save  that  of  liberal  thought  and 
study.  Our  observation  of  him  In  a  previous  chapter  has 
disclosed  how  Impossible  It  was  for  an  Erasmus  to  march 
hand  In  hand  with  Luther.  The  parting  of  their  ways 
typified  the  incompatibility  between  dev^otlon  to  letters 
and  absorption  In  an  enthusiastic  evangelical  agitation. 
It  remains  to  see  what  Luther  thought  of  Erasmus. 

Early  In  March,  15  17,  Luther  writes:  "  I  am  reading 
our  Erasmus,  and  day  by  day  my  estimation  of  him  lessens. 
It  pleases  me  how  learnedly  he  convicts  monks  and  priests 
of  their  inveterate  and  sleepy  ignorance;  ^^  but  I  fear  that 
he  does  not  sufficiently  emphasize  Christ  and  God's  grace, 
wherein  he  is  much  more  Ignorant  than  Lefevre  of 
Etaples.  ^^  Human  considerations  outweigh  the  divine 
with  him."  **  Thus  from  the  first,  Luther  discerned  ra- 
tional ethics  rather  than  religious  unction  in  Erasmus's 
attitude  toward  religion  and  Scripture. 

In  September  1521,  Luther  will  not  listen  to  a  sugges- 
tion coming  from  Erasmus  that  he  should  show  himself 
more  moderate.  "  His  opinion  has  not  the  slightest 
weight  with  me.  .  .  .  when  I  see  him  far  from  a  knowl- 
edge of  grace,  and  In  all  his  writings  looking  to  peace 
rather  than  to  the  cross  of  Christ.  He  thinks  all  these 
matters  should  be  handled  politely  and  gently;  but  Behe- 
moth cares  not  for  that,  nor  will  emendment  come  of  It. 
I  remember,  in  his  preface  to  the  New  Testament,  that  he 
says,  referring  to  himself,  that  a  Christian  easily  despises 
glory.  But,  O  Erasmus,  I  fear,  you  err.  Magna  res 
est  glorlam  contemnere !  "  *^ 

So  he  closes  with  a  pious  but  quite  human  gibe.  Three 
years  later  when  Luther's  friends  no  longer  spared  Eras- 

42  Seems  to  refer  to  reliance  on  ritual,  etc. 

43  See  post,  Chapter  XVII,  i. 

44  De  Wette,  I,  p.  52. 

45  De  Wette,  II,  p.  49-50. 


264  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

mus,  and  that  gifted  man  was  also  dipping  his  pen  in  gall, 
Luther  wrote  directly  to  him,  asking  that  there  might  be 
at  least  a  friendly  truce  between  them.  ^'^  Later,  how- 
ever, for  the  benefit  of  his  son  John,  he  characterized 
Erasmus  as  the  "  enemy  of  all  religions  and  especially 
hostile  to  that  of  Christ,  a  perfect  exemplar  and  type  of 
Epicurus  and  Lucian."  "^"^  Finally  in  1534  Luther  wrote 
to  his  friend  Amsdorff,  lengthily  criticising  the  man  Eras- 
mus, his  pernicious  vievv^s  of  religion,  and  his  erroneous 
understanding  of  Scripture.  The  letter  leaves  very  little 
of  him  uncondemned,  and  ends  v/ith  the  wish  that  his 
works  might  be  excluded  from  the  schools,  since  even 
when  harmless  they  are  useless.^^ 

Long  before  this,  these  two  protagonists,  the  one  of 
religion  the  other  of  humane  piety,  sacred  and  profane, 
had  crossed  arguments  on  the  weighty  matter  of  human 
free  will  and  God's  fore-ordainment.  Erasmus,  fretted 
by  the  stress  of  many  subtle  as  well  as  palpable  compul- 
sions to  declare  against  Luther,  could  refrain  no  longer. 
Had  he  selected  purgatory,  pilgrimages  or  indulgences,  as 
the  topic  of  his  polemic,  his  argument  must  have  stultified 
his  real  agreement  with  Luther  upon  such  matters.  But 
as  a  humanist  in  the  broadest  sense,  he  could  not  but  up- 
hold human  liberty  and  the  freedom  of  the  will.  This 
topic  fell  in  with  the  scope  and  temper  of  his  intellectual 
life;  and  as  a  subject  of  philosophy  suited  his  position  in 
the  eyes  of  men.  He  treated  it  rationally  and  humanly, 
as  a  subject  of  discussion  and  opinion,  yet  adduced  the 
support  of  scriptural  passages. 

The  topic  was  vital  to  Luther's  conception  of  God  and 
man  and  the  nexus  of  creatorship  and  creaturehood  be- 
tween them.  For  years  he  had  devoted  study  and  earnest 
consideration  to  it,  and  as  early  as  15 16  had  composed  in 

■^s  De  Wette,  II,  p.  498;  April,  1524.  Erasmus  was  already  writing  his 
De  libero  arbitrio  against  Luther. 

47  De  Wette,  IV,  497. 

48  De  Wette,  IV,  pp.  507-520.  Cf.  another  letter  to  Amsdorff,  De 
Wette,  IV,  p.  545.  There  is  a  good  deal  in  Luther's  Table  Talk  on 
Erasmus's  foolishness  as  a  theologian,  and  his  utter  failure  to  recognize 
the  function  and  meaning  of  Christ.  See  e.g.  Preger,  Tischreden  Luthers 
(Leipzig  1888)  nos.  357,  365. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  265 

scholastic  fashion  a  searching  Qiiaestio  de  virihus  et  volun- 
tate  hominis  sine  gratia.  *^  With  him  it  was  a  question 
of  Christian  faith,  of  salvation  or  damnation.  Natur- 
ally, in  1525,  as  he  wrote  his  de  servo  arbitrio  In  confuta- 
tion of  Erasmus's  de  libera  arbitrio,  he  condemned  his 
opponent's  attitude  in  treating  the  subject  as  a  m.atter  of 
philosophical  opinion  and  probability.  "  The  Holy 
Ghost  Is  no  sceptic,  and  has  not  written  dubious  opinions 
In  our  hearts,  but  solid  certitudes,  —  more  solid  and  as- 
sured than  life  and  all  experiences." 

You  say,  Erasmus,  continues  Luther  warming  to  his 
argument,  that  all  things  in  Scripture  are  not  necessary 
for  faith,  and  that  some  matters  In  it  are  obscure,  and  you 
cite  Romans  XI,  33,  "  O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of 
the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God !  how  unsearchable  are 
his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past  tracing  out."  But  I  say: 
"God  and  God's  scripture  are  two  things;  just  as  the 
Creator  and  the  creation  are  two  things.  No  one  doubts 
that  much  Is  hidden  In  God  that  we  do  not  know.  .  .  . 
But  that  anything  in  Scripture  Is  confused  and  not  plain 
and  clear.  Is  a  notion  spread  abroad  by  the  godless 
sophists,  with  whose  mouth  thou  speakest,  Erasmus;  but 
they  have  never  brought  forv/ard  an  article,  nor  can 
they,  through  which  this  madness  of  theirs  could  be 
established." 

To  be  sure,  continues  Luther,  to  one  ignorant  of  the 
language  and  grammar  of  Scripture,  much  may  be  hidden; 
but  not  because  of  the  height  or  difficulty  of  the  substance. 
All  Is  written  for  our  instruction,  and  any  seeming  obscur- 
ity Is  due  to  the  blindness  of  the  reader.  It  Is  not  to  be 
endured  that  you  put  this  matter  of  free  will  among  those 
which  are  needless.  On  the  contrary,  we  must  know 
what  the  will  can  do  and  how  It  stands  In  relation  to  God's 
grace.  We  must  distinguish  surely  between  what  Is  God's 
work  and  what  Is  ours,  if  we  would  be  righteous.  "  It 
Is  also  necessary  and  salutary  for  Christians  to  know  that 
God  foreknows  nothing  casually  and  conditionally;  but 

*^  Stange,    Quellenschriften    zur    Ges.    des   Protestantismus   I.    (Leipzig 
1904), 


266  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

that  He  foreknows,  preordains  and  accomplishes  all 
through  His  unchanging  and  eternal  and  unfailing  will. 
This  principle  like  a  lightning  stroke,  strikes  to  earth 
and  crushes  out  free  will." 

After  some  folios  of  Christian  argument,  these  sen- 
tences are  amplified  as  follows  in  Luther's  final  conclu- 
sions : 

"  For  if  we  believe  that  God  foreknows  and  foreordains  all 
things,  and  in  his  foreknowledge  and  foreordalnment  can  neither 
be  deceived  nor  hindered,  then  nothing  can  take  place  that  He  does 
not  Himself  will.  Reason  must  admit  this,  while  Itself  bears  wit- 
ness that  there  Is  no  free  will  In  men  or  angels  or  In  an}'  creature. 
So  If  we  believe  Satan  to  be  the  Prince  of  the  World,  who  fights 
against  the  Kingdom  of  God  In  order  that  bounden  men  may  not 
be  loosed,  and  that  he  Is  overcome  through  the  divine  strength  of 
the  Spirit,  it  is  again  clear  that  there  can  be  no  free  will.  Like- 
wise, If  we  believe  that  original  sin  has  vitiated  us  .  .  .  there  Is 
nothing  left  that  can  turn  to  good,  but  only  to  evil.  ...  In  fine, 
if  we  believe  that  Christ  has  saved  men  through  his  blood,  we  must 
acknowledge  that  the  whole  man  was  lost ;  otherwise  we  shall  make 
Christ  unnecessary,  or  Into  a  Saviour  of  the  most  worthless  part. 
This  were  blasphemous  and  sacrilegious." 

The  modern  man  is  loosed  quite  otherwise  from  this 
particular  predestination  controversy,  —  or  perhaps 
drawn  to  It  by  other  chains.  Luther's  whole  soul  and 
faith  were  in  it,  and  to  his  comfort.  As  he  says  substan- 
tially in  his  Table  Talk:  "  when  I  think  of  the  ineffable 
benefits  God  has  prepared  for  me  in  Christ,  then  predes- 
tination becomes  full  of  comfort:  remove  Christ,  and  all 
is  shattered."  The  whole  temperament  of  Luther  is 
speaking  and  the  sum  of  his  convictions :  the  evangelical 
religious  temperament,  and  the  faith  which  it  Included. 

Luther's  faith  was  justified  by  its  prodigious  doctrinal 
effectiveness.  His  adamantine  conservatism  made  his 
doctrines  solid  and  tangible  as  rocks;  they  had  body;  they 
could  be  grasped  and  held  to ;  and  they  had  the  sanction  of 
divine  authority.     They  were  not  presented  as  novelties, 


MARTIN  LUTHER  267 

but  were  restored  to  men.  Luther  gave  men  what  they 
had  already,  or  might  have  had  at  any  time  from  Scrip- 
ture. And  the  doctrine  which  he  had  to  offer,  the  Pauline 
Christian  Gospel,  was  in  itself  so  good,  so  comforting  and 
assuring,  so  saving  in  this  present  troubled  life,  as  well  as 
for  that  to  come. 

Thus  not  only  from  logical  necessity,  but  actually, 
Luther's  clinging  religious  and  social  conservatism  was  an 
Integral  element  of  his  reforms.  These  present  a  course 
of  enforced  surrender  and  substitution:  the  enforced  sur- 
render of  one  Intolerable  belief  after  another,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  Scriptural  doctrine  or  principle  as  he 
understood  It.  He  kept  what  he  could  of  the  religion  in 
which  he  had  been  reared,  adhering  to  every  belief,  prac- 
tice, or  function  of  the  contemporary  Roman  Catholic 
Church  that  the  progress  of  his  Scriptural  faith  and  the 
logic  and  exigencies  of  his  polemic  state  permitted  him  to 
retain. 

His  primal  sources  of  strength  and  confidence  lay  in 
his  mighty  appropriation  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication by  faith.  It  became  the  main  criterion  of  his 
retentions  and  rejections.  Another  pillar  of  his  strength 
was  his  conception  of  a  Church  universal,  In  which  the 
papacy  was  but  an  incident  and  an  evil  one.  He  threw 
aside  the  hierarchical  papal  monarchy  ^^  for  the  older 
Pauline  and  Augustlnlan  conception  of  a  communion  of 
true  believers.  Thus,  with  certain  differences,  Wycllf 
had  done  before  him;  and  so  should  Calvin  and  other 
succeeding  reformers  do.^^ 

^0  Cf.  Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte,  III,  pp.  410  sqq.     Third  edition. 

51  Luther  gives  his  conception  in  the  third  part  of  his  elaborate  tract 
upon  Councils  and  Churches  written  in  1539.  He  says  that  the  Church 
according  to  the  Ci-eed  is  "  a  communion  of  the  saints,  a  company  or 
assembly  of  such  people  as  are  Christians  and  holy;  that  is,  a  Christian, 
holy,  company  or  church.  .  .  .  The  holy  Christian  Church  is  holy  Christen- 
dom or  the  entire  Christendom.  In  the  Old  Testament  it  is  called  the 
people  of  God."  It  is  a  pity,  says  he,  that  we  have  not  kept  that  unequivo- 
cal expression  "the  holy  Christian  people  of  God";  for  that  is  what  the 
Church  is.  This  Church,  this  holy  Christian  people  of  God,  is  recognized 
by  the  following  works:  It  possesses  God's  Word;  uses  the  sacraments 
of  baptism  and  the  Communion.     It  holds  the  Keys  and  uses  them  openly 


268  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Justification  by  faith,  a  universal  church  of  believers, 
the  freedom  of  the  Christian  man,  not  in  his  own  will  but 
God's:  here  was  enough  to  stay  a  strong  brave  man 
against  the  papal  dragon.  Luther  purged  religion,  even 
made  those  purge  it  who  hated  him.  Yet  one  queries 
w^hether  his  teaching  held  as  much  of  Christianity  as  did 
that  great  age-long  Institution  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  It  would  have  been  hard  for  one  man  to  be  as 
universal  as  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  was  built 
upon  man  as  well  as  upon  God.  Lutheranism  has 
changed  and  subdivided.  And  the  Catholic  Church  in 
spite  of  its  monarch  pope,  its  vain  absolutions,  its  excom- 
munications and  Its  Interdicts,  lives  on.  In  spite  of  Its 
mammon  of  abuses  and  corruption?  Rather,  because  of 
it!  For  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  rests  upon  the  im- 
perfections and  corruptions,  as  well  as  on  the  common 
needs,  of  man.  It  still  has  many  saints;  yet  neither  now, 
nor  in  Luther's  time  or  before  him,  does  its  Catholicism 
point  to  truth  for  truth's  sake,  or  to  righteousness  for  the 
sake  of  righteousness.  Its  soul  looks  to  the  loaves  and 
fishes.  If  not  of  this  world,  then  of  Heaven.  Never  could 
the  Roman  Church  be  supplanted  by  that  mighty  swash- 
buckler of  the  spirit,  Martin  Luther,  though  he  was  him- 
self as  much  and  as  many  things  as  a  man  could  be ;  every- 
thing from  a  foul-mouthed  German  peasant  to  the  might- 
iest of  rehgious  seers,  and  withal  the  greatest  German  we 
have  known. 

so  that  when  a  Christian  sins,  he  shall  be  punished,  and  if  not  bettered, 
shall  be  cast  out,  bound  in  his  sins.  It  selects  and  calls  its  servants,  to  wit, 
its  bishops,  pastors,  preachers,  who  administer  its  holy  things  or  offices, 
named  above.  God's  people  are  also  recognized  by  their  public  prayer 
and  singing  of  psalms  and  spiritual  songs;  and  by  their  holy  cross  of  (a) 
enduring  the  persecution  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  and  (b) 
obeying  the  authorities.  Such  are  the  constituents  of  Christian  holiness; 
and  there  are  besides  the  outer  signs  of  good  conduct  in  all  things  accord- 
ing to  the  Commandments  of  God.  The  devil  has  aped  Code's  holy 
Church  in  the  papacy  and  its  institutions  and  ceremonies  through  which 
papists  think  they  will  be  saved.  Yet  beware,  on  the  other  hand,  of  those 
who  cry  Spirit!  spirit!   and  decry  all  outer  observances. 

In  closing,  he  says  that  the  school  is  needed  to  educate  true  preachers; 
next,  the  household  to  provide  scholars,  then  the  Rathhaus  to  protect  the 
citizens.  The  Church,  God's  own  house  and  city,  draws  its  protection 
from  the  city,  and  its  members  from  the  household.  So  the  three  orders 
are  household,  city,  Church. 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  IX 

MELANCHTHON  AND  ZWINGLI 

There  were  two  men  very  different  from  each  other  in 
their  characters  and  careers,  who  when  they  met,  met  as 
partial  opponents,  and  were  not  permitted  to  agree  by  the 
masterful  Luther  who  held  them  apart:  Melanchthon  and 
Zwingli.  With  respect  to  their  inclinations  and  functions 
they  may  also  be  regarded  as  people  working  at  some 
half  way  station  between  Luther  and  Erasmus,  a  position 
more  apparent  with  Melanchthon  than  with  the  vigorous 
and  independent  Swiss  reformer. 

In  the  Lutheran  movement  Melanchthon  is  second  only 
to  his  chief  in  importance  and  effect;  his  is  the  one  name 
besides  Luther's  which  has  survived  in  popular  fame. 
There  was  reverence  and  affection  between  the  two,  v/hich 
continued  unbroken  to  the  end,  though  sometimes  strained. 
Melanchthon  worked  under  Luther's  leadership  though 
not  altogether  under  his  dominance;  and  Luther  held  him 
to  be  far  more  gifted  than  himself.  The  tutelary  deity  of 
Melanchthon's  youth  was  Reuchlin,  his  great-uncle,  who 
saw  to  his  university  education  and  advancement  and  in 
15 1 8  obtained  a  call  for  him  from  the  Elector  to  teach 
Greek  at  Wittenberg,  when  Melanchthon  was  only 
twenty-one  years  old.  He  was  indeed  a  youthful  prodigy 
in  his  studies  and  intellectual  development;  nor  did  his 
faculties  weaken  with  the  advance  of  years  and  knowl- 
edge. His  attainments  drew  the  admiration  of  Erasmus, 
with  whom  he  remained  on  good  terms;  for  he  was  a 
man  inclined  to  stay  at  peace  with  all.  Humanist, 
scholar,  educator,  promoter  of  the  classical  languages  and 
thought,  Melanchthon  would  gladly  have  devoted  him- 
self to  Greek,  and  might  have  preferred  it  to  theology. 
But  as  he  clove  at  once  to  Luther,  his  labors,  like  his 
destinies,  were  cast  in  the  fields  of  the  great  conflict. 

269 


270  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Next  to  Luther  himself,  Melanchthon  became  par  ex- 
cellence the  champion,  the  expounder,  and  the  formulator 
of  Lutheranism.  He  defended  his  chief  in  an  Apology 
directed  against  the  *'  Furious  decree  of  the  Paris  Theol- 
ogasters,"  the  Sorbonne  to  wit,  who  had  declared  Luther 
an  arch-heretic.  Like  his  leader,  he  wrote  against  the 
murderous  peasants,  and  after  the  deed,  he  approved  the 
burning  of  Servetus  in  Geneva.  He  was,  however,  more 
conciliatory,  and  given  to  dreams  of  pace  where 
Luther  saw  there  could  be  none,  as  at  the  Augsburg  diet. 
The  Augsburg  Confession  and  Apology  were  his  master- 
pieces of  Protestant  formulation. 

His  chief  work  of  theological  exposition  was  of  course 
the  Loci  Communes  theologici^  which  emerging  from  an 
embryonic  Jdumbratio,  proceeded  onward  through  a  first 
and  second  and  third  Aetas  to  its  final  bulk  and  form. 
Even  as  Calvin's  Institute.  And  It  Is  a  matter  of  no 
slight  interest  to  note  that  as  Melanchthon's  work  and 
Calvin's  reached  their  final  form,  they  followed  more 
closely  the  arrangement  of  the  Lombard's  Sentences  and 
the  Summa  of  Aquinas.  The  fact  was  that  for  the  Lom- 
bard and  Aquinas,  as  for  Augustine  before  them,  and  later 
for  Calvin  and  Melanchthon,  Scripture  Itself  furnished  the 
arrangement  of  a  work  that  should  comprehend  Scriptural 
doctrine.  Says  Melanchthon  at  the  beginning  of  his 
Secunda  Aetas:  "  Habet  Ipsa  scrlptura  suam  quandam 
methodum  et  quidem  artlficiosam.  Series  enim  dogma- 
tum  ab  Ipso  ordlne  historiae  aptlssime  suml  potest. 
Initio  de  creatlone,  de  peccato  homlnis,  de  promissionibus 
loquitur,  postea  tradit  legem,  delnde  docit  Evangelium  de 
Christo: — "  most  aptly  we  arrange  our  matter  after  the 
order  of  Scriptural  history;  creation,  man's  sin,  the  prom- 
ises, the  law,  and  finally  the  Gospel.^ 

In  this  excellent  work  Melanchthon  draws  away  from 
scholasticae  nugae;  and  likewise  from  the  Aristotelicae 
argutiae,   although   philosophically   he   held   a   profound 

1  Melanchthon's  Loci  Communes  occupy  Vols.  XXI  and  XXII  of  the 
Corpus  Reformatorum,  where  the  work  is  printed  in  its  three  stages,  of 
1521,  1535  and  1543.  The  passage  quoted  is  froin  col,  254  of  Vol.  XXI; 
compare  with  it  col.  341  of  the  same  volume. 


MELANCHTHON  AND  ZWINGLI  271 

respect  for  the  Staglrite,  and  deemed  his  system  salutary 
as  a  barrier  against  the  phUosophical  disorder  of  the  age. 
But  the  statements  and  arguments  of  the  Loci  Communes 
in  the  main  are  based  on  Scripture,  and  much  more  direct- 
ly ihan  those  for  instance  of  the  Siimma  of  Aquinas.  For 
unlike  the  Stimma,  the  Loci  Communes  does  not  move  and 
find  Its  substance  In  Aristotelian  categories  of  thought. 
Melanchthon  rather  intended  it  as  an  ordered  Summa  of 
the  Scriptural  Testimonia.  The  new  learning  is  present 
throughout  the  smooth  Latin  exposition  of  this  master  of 
clarity;  and  the  work  is  humanistically  flavored  with  Greek 
words  and  classical  allusions.  For  the  author  w^as  first 
and  last  a  scholar,  loving  classical  scholarship  for  Its  own 
sake.  He  also  liked  to  find  the  analogues  to  scriptural 
truth  In  the  lives  and  precepts  of  pagan  philosophers;  as 
one  sees  so  clearly  In  those  paragraphs  where  he 
arranges  the  precepts  of  the  Law  of  Nature  In 
correspondence  with  the  Decalogue.^  His  liberal 
humanistic  Inclinations  drew  him  toward  Erasmus's  side 
Instead  of  Luther's  In  the  controversy  upon  the  freedom 
of  the  human  will,  which  Is  evident  In  the  Secunda  Aetas 
of  his  Loci  of  1535  and  becomes  even  more  pronounced  In 
the  corresponding  sections  of  the  Tertia  Aetas  of  1543.^ 

Confidence  In  the  best  in  classical  literature  and  phil- 
osophy, respect  for  the  lumen  naturale  which  the  Fall  of 
man  darkened,  but  did  not  destroy,  and  recognition  of  the 
lex  naturae,  worked  together  to  strengthen  the  moral 
quality  of  Melanchthon's  theology,  and  broadened  its 
consideration  of  natural  reason  and  the  conscience  of 
mankind.  All  this  tended  to  moralize  his  theology,  as 
his  tempered  exclusion  of  Aristotelian  arguments  tended 
to  simplify  it.  Again,  It  was  his  natural  reason  and  moral 
conscience  that  Insisted  on  the  freedom  of  the  human  will, 
and  afforded  an  independent  testimony  In  favor  of  the 
soul's  immortality. 

Melanchthon  was   a   moral   theologian,   and   a   moral 

^Loci  Com.  De  lege  naturae.     Third  Aetas  Vol.  XXI,  Corp.  Ref.  Col. 
711  sqq. 

3  Vol.  XXI,  Corp.  Ref.  Col.  274  sqq.  and  col.  652  sqq. 


272  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

philosopher,  and  in  all  his  labors  for  education  never  lost 
sight  of  the  moral  betterment  which  should  result  from 
learning.  He  strove  so  to  enlarge  and  complete  the  plan 
of  education  that  it  might  embrace  all  revealed  or  tested 
truth.  To  that  end  he  was  wont  to  use  the  pagan  ele- 
ments to  fill  out  the  Christian  scheme.  His  study  of 
antiquity  was  Catholic.  He  admired  Plato,  yet  followed 
Aristotle;  and  as  was  natural  for  a  sixteenth  century 
humanist,  he  found  moral  and  philosophic  discussions 
adapted  to  his  taste  and  comprehension  in  the  works  of  the 
eclectic  Cicero.  Following  Aristotle,  imbibing  Cicero,  he 
produced  manuals  of  Dialectic,  Physics,  Ethics,  or  edited 
the  Aristotelian  treatises  on  these  topics;  and  composed 
Greek  and  Latin  grammars,  and  other  books  for  the 
schools.  This  great  array  of  admirable  text  books, 
which  carried  far  and  wide  his  stimulating  personal  in- 
structions, earned  for  him  the  honored  title  of  Praeceptor 
Germaniae,  which  more  than  one  educational  worthy  had 
borne  before  him. 

Zwingli  was  never  a  follower  of  Luther,  but  rather  an 
opponent,  though  holding  some  of  the  same  doctrines 
He  was  bred  to  an  utterly  different  social  and  political  re 
gime;   his   convictions   did  not   come   from   Wittenberg 
although  their  development  appears  to  have  been  influ 
enced  by  Luther's  writings.     The  two  men  were  of  in 
dependent  and  rather  opposite  temperaments,  and,  when 
they  met,  parted  in  confirmed  disagreement.     Zwingli  Is 
supposed  to  have  been  jealous  of  Luther's  power,  and 
Luther  always  disapproved  both  of  Zwingli  and  his  views, 
and  thought  at  last  that  his  fate  rightly  came  on  him  in 
the  battle  of  Kappel;  for,  having  taken  the  sword,  he 
perished  by  it;  and  if  God  received  him  into  blessedness 
He  did  it  extra  re^ulamf  ^ — which  Is  to  say,  acting  not 
strictly  In  accord  with  Luther's  ideas. 

Zwingli  was  born  in   1484  In  the  Toggenburg  valley, 
dominion  over  which  was  disputed  by  Zurich  and  Schwyz. 

^  Preger,  Luthers  Tischreden,  no.  218,  cf.  no.  509. 


MELANCHTHON  AND  ZWINGLI  273 

In  1 5 18  he  was  elected  priest  and  preacher  for  the  great 
Zurich  Minster;  and  thenceforth  guided  that  city's  polit- 
ical as  well  as  religious  destinies,  in  a  way  that  anticipated 
the  career  of  Calvin  at  Geneva.  For  Zwingli  was  a 
Swiss  civic  personality  and  politician  before  he  became  a 
reformer.  From  a  certain  teacher  at  Basel  named  Wyt- 
tenbach,  he  early  took  the  principle  of  justification  by 
faith,  learned  to  look  to  Scripture  as  the  Christian  author- 
ity, and  also  to  disapprove  of  papal  indulgences.  His 
education  was  mainly  humanistic,  and  drawn  from  var- 
ious masters.  He  professed  to  admire  and  follow  Eras- 
mus. But  he  was  taken  by  the  writings  of  Pico  della 
Mirandula;  and  he  drew  from  the  Classics  much  that 
entered  his  life  and  affected  the  development  of  his  con- 
victions. He  was  a  Greek  scholar,  and  a  student  of  the 
New  Testament,  who  preferred  the  text  to  the  commen- 
tators. He  was  also  a  reader  of  the  Church  Fathers. 
The  Church  was  less  powerful  in  Svv^itzerland  than  in 
other  countries,  less  well  organized  and  correspondingly 
infected  with  looseness  of  conduct.  But  the  papacy  was 
tenderly  disposed  toward  the  people  of  the  little  mountain 
land,  where  its  pay  drew  unequalled  soldiers,  of  which  the 
present  papal  guard  Is  the  last  survival.  Although  he 
had  profited  from  it,  Zwingli  declared  himself  opposed 
to  this  mercenary  service  and  to  the  papal  pensions  which 
corrupted  Swiss  politics  and  people.  He  was  rather  anti- 
papal  from  the  beginning;  and  readily  yielded  to  his  de- 
veloping protestantism  to  disavow  the  pope's  authority. 
He  was  a  preacher  and  a  priest;  yet  his  life  was  rather 
loose,  and  In  1524  he  married. 

By  this  time  a  general  change  in  the  forms  of  worship 
had  been  effected  at  Zurich,  Zwingli  leading  the  movement. 
The  church  there  was  made  civic  and  democratic;  its 
offices  were  reformed  and  translated  into  German;  Images 
were  discarded,  and  the  Mass  abolished  (April,  1525); 
the  monasteries  were  secularized,  and  their  incomes  de- 
voted to  charity  or  education.  A  struggle  followed  with 
the  Anabaptists,  who  were  for  the  most  part  expelled. 


274  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  further  course  of  ZwIngH's  life  was  involved  in  a 
tangle  of  politics,  connected  with  the  progress  or  blocking 
of  the  Reform  in  Switzerland. 

Zwingli's  formulation  of  a  Christian  faith  was  not  as 
important  as  Luther's  on  the  one  hand,  or  as  Calvin's  on 
the  other.  If  it  was  not  carried  through  with  the  origin- 
ative religious  power  of  the  one,  or  the  insistent  logic 
of  the  other,  it  was  reasonable  and  genial.  Politician, 
man  of  action,  as  he  was,  Zwingli  was  also  a  reader  and  a 
student.  And,  as  is  common  with  able  busy  men,  who 
are  also  great  readers,  he  assembled  thoughts  from  many 
quarters,  worked  them  into  his  convictions  or  philosophy, 
but  had  neither  the  slow  meditative  leisure  nor  the  inner 
power  to  transform  the  matter  of  his  reading  into  a  seam- 
less system.  Yet  he  grasped  with  energy  the  Pauline 
Augustinian  justification  through  faith,  and  genially  and 
humanely  enlarged  his  religious  conceptions  with  thoughts 
drawn  from  Seneca's  eclectic  but  predominantly  Stoic 
store,  or  from  the  undigested  mass  of  borrowed  and  yet 
temperamentalized  ideas  offered  by  the  works  of  Pico. 
Through  them,  and  independently  of  them,  he  gleaned 
from  many  minds  thoughts  which  served  his  working 
faith.  Withal,  and  this  is  a  vital  point,  inasmuch  as  he 
was  a  man  of  action,  a  man  of  working  faith,  and  a  re- 
former of  religious  practice  and  doctrine,  he  did  not  fail 
to  vitalize  his  teachings  and  endue  them  with  qualities  of 
power,  by  which  men  might  live  and  endure,  or  fight. 

With  Seneca,  philosophy  was  a  way  to  virtue.  It  was 
a  religion  with  him;  and  it  became  an  integral  part  of  the 
religion  of  Zwingli.  Seneca  expressed  as  much  trust  in 
God  as  was  felt  by  a  Paul  or  an  Augustine.  He  had  also 
said:  "We  are  born  in  a  kingdom;  liberty  is  to  obey 
God."  God  has  the  qualities  of  a  Father,  and  is  also  the 
summum  honum  for  all.  Zwingli  adds  the  thought  that 
believers  are  his  willing  instruments,  working  along  with 
him  for  their  only  good,  and  for  the  glory  which  is  in  the 
fulfilment  of  the  divine  purpose :  a  mighty  thought. 

Zwingli  advanced  still  further  in  his  eclectic  stoicism 


"  MELANCHTHON  AND  ZWINGLI  275 

and  Augustlnianism,  following  his  own  Impulse  too,  and 
found  God  to  be  the  sum  total  of  good,  that  is  of  being: 
"  unum  ac  solum  infinitum  .  .  .  praeter  hoc  nihil  esse." 
Universal  being,  (esse  rerum  universarum)  is  the  being 
of  God,  (esse  numinis).^  Hence  God  includes  all  finite 
beings,  who  are  part  of  Him  and  his  universal  plan.  He 
is  the  founder,  ruler,  administrator  of  the  universe.  Man 
alone  shall  not  stand  without  the  scope  of  God's  all- 
determining  purpose.  Zwingli  brings  the  full  stoical  con- 
ception of  providence  into  the  Christian  scheme  of 
election.^ 

God  reveals  himself  in  the  consciousness  and  consciences 
of  men ;  and  creates  faith  within  them.  That  faith  is  true 
which  directs  Itself  solely  to  God;  superstition  consists  in 
reliance  upon  other  things."^  He  revealed  himself  to  the 
minds  of  the  chosen  heathen,  as  well  as  to  the  flock  of 
Christ.  So  with  Zwingli,  the  outer  revelation  ceased  to 
be  all  important;  and  incidents  and  observances  became 
of  no  Importance.  He  was  disposed  to  discard  the  special 
miracle  and  intervention:  why  demand  the  particular 
supernatural  manifestation  when  God  is  the  sole  first 
cause,  and  works  all  things  In  all,  to  the  exclusion  of  secon- 
dary causes.  Surely  he  who  finds  God  working  every- 
where will  need  no  special  miracles.  So  Zwingli  would 
admit  no  miracle  in  the  Eucharist,  no  miraculous  real 
presence  such  as  Luther  held  to.  For  him,  the  sacrament 
was  a  memorial  and  a  sign. 

The  outer  ceremony  may  be  negligible,  indifferent. 
But  there  is  a  highest  visible  manifestation  of  the  will  and 
law  of  God,  which  men  may  bring  to  pass,  working  In 
faith :  it  is  the  Christian  community  or  State,  founded  on 
the  observance  of  God's  law  as  well  as  on  the  promise  of 
His  Gospel.  Here  was  again  the  mighty  thought  with 
which  Calvin  should  build,  Knox  preach,  and  Cromwell 
smite,    all   of   them  willing   Instruments   of  God.     No 

5  For    these    citations    and    more    besides,    I    am    indebted    to    Dilthey, 
Auffassung  etc  des  Menschen  in  15.  und  16.  Jahrhundert. 
^  In  Zwingli's  De  providentia. 
7  Zwingli,  De  vera  et  falsa  religione. 


276  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Lutheran  church  formed  under  the  protection  of  an  auto- 
cratic prince,  and  obediently  adapting  at  least  its  outer 
self  to  the  existent  institutions  and  policy  of  a  secular 
state,  could  even  entertain  such  an  ideal. 


BOOK  III 
THE  FRENCH  MIND 


CHAPTER  X 


VILLON 


There  were  analogies  of  human  endeavor  and  Intent 
in  the  intellectual  advance  of  France  and  Italy  In  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  In  both  countries  the 
same  fundamental  humanity  was  somehow  pushing  on, 
struggling  and  manoevering  for  possessions,  also  seeking 
knowledge,  truth,  and  beauty.  Divergencies  at  the  same 
time  appear,  due  partly  to  ancient  differences  of  racial 
trait,  and  assuredly  to  the  different  histories  of  the  two 
countries.  The  resulting  Gallic-French  temperament  was 
not  as  the  Italian;  and  the  French  mind  seemingly  sought 
other  goals.  Obviously,  moreover,  in  the  period  before 
us,  the  opportunities,  possibilities,  exigencies  of  the  two 
lands  were  very  different.  The  Intellectual  product,  the 
finished  self-expression  of  the  French  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, will  not  resemble  the  Italian,  except  when  directly 
imitating  It. 

Caesar's  conquest  of  Gaul  did  not  result  In  any  such 
indelible  Romanizatlon  of  its  people  as  to  preclude  a 
marked  originality  of  growth  through  the  mediaeval 
period.  Yet  the  quick,  susceptible  Gallic  faculties  lent 
themselves  happily  to  the  discipline  of  the  Roman  order; 
and  this  people  seem  to  have  gained  from  it  permanent 
qualities  of  clarity  and  logic.  To  the  west  and  north, 
Gauls  and  Belgl  shaded  Into  Teutons,  while  the  Teutonic 
conquests  of  the  fifth  and  succeeding  centuries  set  a  strong 
German  graft  upon  the  Celtic  stock.  This  resulting 
French  race,  fundamentally  Celtic,  vet  with  Teutonic 
strains,  was  akin  on  the  one  side  to  the  Irish,  and  on  the 
other  to  the  Germans  across  the  Rhine.  Neither  the 
Irish  nor  the  Germans  were  subjected  to  the  discipline  of 


28o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  Roman  order;  and  in  quite  different  ways  were  to 
betray  through  all  the  centuries  the  lack  of  this  initial 
disciplinary  period. 

The  progress  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  in 
France  would  proceed  from  the  equipment  and  faculties 
of  the  better  people,  be  guided  by  their  tastes,  and  depend 
upon  their  opportunities  and  the  energy  with  which  they 
should  master  further  knowledge,  and  appropriate  or  de- 
velop new  elements  of  life.  French  faculties  and  desires 
might  in  some  respects  show  German  and  English  affini- 
ties, rather  than  Italian;  and  Germany  and  the  Low 
Countries  furnished  many  of  the  new  intellectual  stimuli. 
Incentive  and  aid  to  better  classical  studies  came  not  from 
Italy  alone  —  Erasmus  was  an  influence  in  Paris;  the  art 
of  printing  was  introduced  from  Germany,  while  the  style 
and  method  of  Flemish  painting  extended  through  the 
lands  of  Burgundy  and  France.  In  philosophy,  the  in- 
fluence of  the  German  Nicholas  of  Cusa  rivalled  that  of 
Ficino's  Platonic  translations;  while  many  a  new  idea  in 
terrestrial  and  celestial  physics  had  its  first  home  else- 
where than  in  Italy.  With  Frenchmen,  love  of  formal 
beauty  did  not  lead  directly  to  the  composition  of  class- 
ical centos  and  empty  imitations.  And,  clearest  difference 
of  all,  religious  revolt,  with  its  intended  reform  and  re- 
construction, which  was  but  sporadic  in  Italy  during  these 
two  centuries,  in  France,  in  Germany  and  Flanders,  and 
in  England,  became  the  most  drastic  issue. 

The  fourteenth  century,  which  for  France  was  stamped 
by  the  ravages  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  was  also 
marked  by  the  partial  disintegration  of  the  social,  political 
and  religious  conceptions  which  had  sustained  the  mediae- 
val organism.  France  was  still  far  from  the  attainment 
of  political  nationality.  Much  territory  was  distributed 
in  dukedoms  and  count-doms,  the  lords  of  which  gave 
little  more  than  homage  to  the  Valois  Kings,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  direct  Capetian  line  in  1328.  This  lack  of 
unity  issued  in  civil  war  when  Burgundy  allied  herself  with 
the  English  enemies  of  France,  and  the  kingdom  seemed 
shattered  past  recovery.     Yet  there  was  vitality  in  the 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  281 

French  monarchy,  which  at  last  came  Into  Its  own  when 
Burgundy  was  joined  to  the  royal  domain  by  Louis  XI, 
on  the  death  of  Charles  the  Bold  ( 1477). 

The  contest  of  wits  and  arms  between  Louis  and 
Charles  is  famous  In  history  and  story  through  the  dra- 
matic contrast  between  the  two  protagonists.  It  was  a 
last  phase  of  the  conflict  between  feudalism  and  the  mon- 
archic principle,  and  was  directly  due  to  the  custom  of 
bestowing  huge  fiefs  as  appanages,  upon  the  younger  sons 
of  the  royal  house.  Philip  le  Hardi,  the  brother  of 
Charles  V  of  France,  held  Burgundy  in  1364.  Through 
the  death  of  his  father-in-law  in  138 1  he  became  also 
Count  of  Flanders,  a  year  after  the  death  of  his  brother 
the  King.  The  King's  son,  Charles  VI,  a  weakling  from 
birth,  became  In  the  course  of  time  an  Intermittent  mad- 
man. Hostility  between  his  brother  Louis,  Duke  of  Or- 
leans, and  his  uncle  Philip  of  Burgundy  divided  the  realm 
till  Philip's  death  In  1404.  Philip's  son  and  successor 
John  took  up  the  quarrel,  and  In  1407  had  his  cousin  of 
Orleans  assassinated.  On  his  avowal  of  the  deed,  civil 
vv^ar  broke  out,  each  faction  struggling  to  control  the  per- 
son of  the  King.  John,  a  man  of  turnings  and  tergiversa- 
tions, allied  himself  with  the  Invader,  Henry  V  of  Eng- 
land, and  brought  to  pass  the  temporary  ruin  of  the  realm. 
Upon  his  murder  in  1419,  Philip  "the  Good"  came 
to  the  ducal  throne.  He  had  little  regard  either  for 
France  or  England.  Btit,  deciding  to  make  peace  with 
Charles  VII  of  France,  he  abandoned  the  waning  fortunes 
of  the  English,  and  through  apt  measures  for  his  own 
aggrandizement,  succeeded  In  doubling  his  already  enor- 
mous patrimony. 

There  could  be  little  love  between  the  rulers  of  Bur- 
gundy and  France,  and  In  the  end  Philip  was  pleased  to 
foster  trouble  for  the  King  by  encouraging  the  latter's 
graceless  son  and  dauphin,  Louis,  In  his  rebellion.  He 
received,  and  for  some  years  magnificently  entertained  him 
against  the  King's  protest,  who  said:  "  Mon  cousin  de 
Bourgogne  nourrit  le  renard  qui  mangera  ses  poules." 
At  the  Burgundlan  Court,  Louis  became  the  god-parent 


282  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

(parrain)  of  the  heavy-fated  Marie,  daughter  of  PhiHp's 
son,  the  future  Charles  the  Bold. 

Philip  excelled  his  liege  sovereign  in  wealth  and  power; 
—  only  he  was  not  a  King!  War  was  imminent  between 
them,  when  the  death  of  Charles  made  way  for  Louis  in 
146 1.  He  was  crowned  at  Rheims  under  the  patronage 
and  at  the  expense  of  the  great  Duke,  whose  splendor 
fastened  all  men's  eyes.  So  it  was  in  Paris  too,  till  the 
Duke  began  to  perceive  that  not  he,  but  Louis,  was  the 
King. 

The  Duke  was  ageing;  and  his  own  far  from  dutiful 
son  Charles  (these  Burgundian  dukes  were  much  too 
choleric)  became  reconciled  to  his  father  in  order  to  direct 
the  power  of  Burgundy  against  Louis  whom  he  hated. 
He  was  soon  heading  the  feudatory  league,  absurdly 
called  the  "Public  Good";  and  a  critical  time  for  the 
King  followed  the  ill-fought  and  indecisive  battle  of 
Montlhery,  near  Paris.  Thenceforth  through  truce  or 
peace,  or  declared  hostilities,  the  warfare  of  intrigue  and 
arms  did  not  cease  between  them.  This  long  and  intri- 
cate story  had  its  striking  episodes,  as  that  of  Louis  ven- 
turing almost  fatally  for  him  into  Charles's  Court  and  the 
mutually  mistrustful  potentates  joining  in  an  attack  on 
Liege.  The  end  of  the  story  came  through  the  perverse 
embroilment  of  Charles  with  the  hard-hitting  Swiss, 
which,  after  two  disastrous  defeats,  led  to  his  shameful 
death  in  flight.  He  was  a  foolish  leader  in  war,  and  in 
diplomacy  lacked  patience  and  understanding. 

The  character  and  mental  quality  of  the  time  appear  in 
the  Memoires  of  Commynes,^  the  chief  narrator  of 
this  story.  Through  his  aid  we  realize  how  Louis  netted 
Charles,  being  so  much  less  foolish  than  his  rival,  so  much 
more  patient  and  self-restrained.  Allowing  for  differ- 
ences of  temperament,  the  King  was  no  more  dishonor- 
able than  that  futile  man  who  with  such  folly  and  so  little 
steadfast  courage,  dashed  his  choleric  head  against  impos- 
sibiHties.  Indeed,  Louis  XI  was  no  more  of  a  liar  and 
betrayer  than  other  princes  of  his  time;  but  he  could  hold 

1  Born  in  1447,  died  in  1511, 


LOUIS  Xi  AND  COMMYNiES  283 

to  his  purposes.  Commynes  while  admitting  in  his  Pro- 
logue that  there  will  be  found  in  his  Memoires  matters 
not  to  the  King's  credit,  says:  "  I  dare  affirm  in  his  praise 
that  I  have  known  no  prince  with  fewer  vices  (moins  de 
vices)  everything  considered."  He  has  just  been  remark- 
ing that  princes  are  men  like  ourselves  — "  To  God  alone 
belongs  perfection;  but  in  a  prince  so  long  as  his  virtue  and 
good  qualities  outweigh  his  vices,  he  is  worthy  of  re- 
membrance and  praise." 

The  writer  was  a  man  of  wide  experience  and  tolerance; 
a  true  exponent  of  his  world.  His  own  record  required 
indulgence.  For  his  father  had  placed  him  at  the  Bur- 
gundian  Court,  and  he  was  the  servant  of  Charles  before 
he  chose  to  yield  to  the  solicitations  of  his  rival,  whose 
diplomatic  minister  he  became.  He  preferred  to  serve  a 
wise  prince,  who  had  knowledge  of  affairs  and  took  part 
in  them  and  did  not  do  everything  through  others. 
With  such  a  master  there  is  surer  chance  of  recognition 
and  reward.  Of  course  one  has  to  live  under  those  who 
are  over  him,  —  and  our  whole  hope  ought  to  be  in  God.  ^ 
It  was  part  of  the  intelligence  of  the  grasping  and  prudent 
King  that  he  rewarded  munificently  those  who  served  him 
well:  "  Among  all  the  princes  I  have  known,  the  King  our 
master  knew  best  how  to  act,  and  how  to  honor  people  of 
worth."  This  remark  comes  toward  the  end  of  a  digres- 
sive chapter  in  which  Commynes  has  been  speaking  of  the 
advantage  to  princes  of  a  knowledge  of  history;  since  life 
is  so  short  that  one  cannot  learn  enough  by  experience,  and 
should  therefore  make  use  of  history's  teachings. 

Princes  should  understand  men,  and  how,  or  at  least 
when,  to  treat  them  well.  Commynes  brings  in  these 
sentiments  when  telling  how  an  able  Burgundian  envoy, 
the  lord  of  Humbercourt,  preserved  his  own  life  and  so 
handled  the  people  of  Liege  that  they  decided  to  yield 
their  city  to  the  Duke  when  he  could  not  have  captured  it. 
Humbercourt  gained  his  end  largely  through  his  judicious 
treatment  of  certain  hostages  from  the  townspeople, 
sending  them  freely  to  negotiate  with  their  fellow  towns- 

2Livre  I,  ch.  i6. 


284  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

men.  The  writer  points  to  the  ill-judgment  of  those 
princes  who  repent  them  of  kindness  or  of  generosity  in 
pardoning.  There  will  be  some  ingrates;  but  because  of 
such,  one  should  not  forego  the  chance  of  doing  well  by 
others  when  opportunity  offers.  Commynes  will  not  be- 
lieve that  any  "  personne  saige  "  would  prove  ungrateful 
for  benefits  conferred.  But  princes  deceive  themselves  in 
their  choice  of  persons;  to  attach  a  fool  to  oneself  will 
never  profit  long.  A  lord  can  show  no  greater  sense  than 
in  gaining  the  attachment  of  worthy  people  — "  gens 
vertueux  et  honnestes  ";  for  men  will  judge  him  by  those 
whom  he  surrounds  himself  with.  And  to  conclude,  says 
Commynes,  "  it  seems  to  me  that  one  should  never  tire  of 
treating  people  well  (jamais  lasser  de  bien  faire).  For 
a  single  and  the  least  one  of  those  whom  one  has  ever 
benefited,  will  perchance  render  such  service  and  show 
such  gratitude,  as  to  atone  for  all  the  base  and  evil  con- 
duct of  the  rest." 

According  to  the  ideas  of  Commynes  and  King  Louis, 
and  of  later  times  as  well,  the  prince  may  wisely  bestow 
gifts  on  the  servants  of  other  princes.  Louis  did  this  all 
his  life  with  discretion  and  success.  Commynes  is  capable 
of  treating  the  matter  with  cynical  humor,  as  when  at  a 
late  period  of  Louis's  career,  after  the  death  of  Charles, 
he  tells  how  Louis  pensioned  the  great  lords  of  England, 
to  keep  them  friendly  to  his  wishes,  and  prevent  their 
interfering  with  his  designs  upon  the  lands  of  the  Burgun- 
dian  heiress.  By  paying  Edward  IV  fifty  thousand 
crowns  a  year,  he  closed  his  ears  to  the  remonstrances  at 
home  or  from  abroad:  *' L'avarlce  de  ces  cinquante  mil 
escuz,  renduz  tous  les  ans  en  son  chasteau  de  Londres,  luy 
amoUissoit  le  cueur."  Louis's  ambassadors  were  always 
well  entertained,  while  they  beguiled  Edward  with  talk 
of  a  marriage  between  his  daughter  and  the  dauphin. 
Yet  certain  members  of  Edward's  council,  or  his  Parlia- 
ment, thought  differently,  "  saiges  personnaiges  "  they 
were,  "  who  looked  ahead,  and  had  received  no  pensions 
like  the  others." 

This  King  Edward  was  a  valiant  leader,  as  Commynes 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  285 

says,  and  had  won  seven  or  eight  great  battles  In  England, 
himself  fighting  always  on  foot,  which  was  greatly  to  his 
praise.  But  he  was  not  as  clever  as  King  Louis,  as  men 
had  good  reason  to  think  from  the  peace  which  Louis 
made  with  him  when  he  had  Invaded  France  in  aid  of 
Charles.  Louis  obtained  a  truce,  and  sent  the  English 
three  hundred  chariots  of  the  best  wine,  and  afterwards 
made  them  still  more  royally  drunk  In  Amiens.^ 

These  happy  ways  of  Louis  did  not  include  all  his  state- 
craft. Beyond  other  men,  he  knew  how  to  sow  dissen- 
sions. As  Commynes  says:  "Que  le  roy  Loys  nostre 
malstre  a  mieulx  seu  entendre  cest  art  de  separer  les  gens, 
que  nul  aultre  prince  que  j'aye  jamais  veu  ne  congneu; 
et  n'espargnolt  I'argent  ne  ses  blens  ne  sa  peine,  non  point 
seullement  envers  les  malstres,  mais  aussi  bien  envers  les 
servlteurs."  ^  And  If  Commynes  has  shown  how  Louis 
could  reward  profusely,  and  even  decide  to  trust,  he  shows 
that  none  could  be  more  prudent  and  suspicious,  as  one 
had  need  to  be  amid  the  network  of  mutual  treason  and 
betrayal  which  made  up  the  politics  of  Burgundy,  France 
and  England,  the  last  country  being  then  engaged  in  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses.  Speaking  of  how  a  clever  English- 
woman won  the  Duke  of  Clarence  away  from  the  arch  in- 
triguer Warwick  and  deceived  the  best  wits,  our  author 
remarks  "  that  there  is  nothing  shameful  in  being  suspi- 
cious, and  keeping  one's  eye  on  those  who  come  and  go; 
but  It  Is  a  disgrace  to  be  deceived,  and  lose  through  one's 
blunder.     However,  to  be  over-suspicious  Is  not  well." 

King  Louis  was  an  adept  at  discoveries  and  espials,  and 
kept  himself  Informed  of  the  Intentions  of  friends  and 
enemies.  Usually  he  succeeded  in  laying  his  plots  and 
counterplots  a  little  deeper  than  theirs,  and  when  the 
explosion  came.  It  was  not  his  trench  that  flew  Into  the 
air.  That  was  what  the  Count  of  St.  Pol  discovered,  or 
rather  failed  to  discover:  a  man  who  hoped  by  double  or 
triple  dealing  to  escape  being  ground  between  England, 
France  and  Burgundy.     He  would  trick  them  all.     The 

3  Livre  VI,  i ;   IV,  9. 
4Livre  II,  i. 


286  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

King's  counter-wile  was  St.  Pol's  undoing  when  the  latter 
sent  his  envoys  with  excuses.  Louis  concealed  a  trusted 
counsellor  of  the  Duke's  behind  the  curtain  of  the  audience 
chamber,  and  then  drew  the  envoys  on  to  tell  their  mas- 
ter's mind  touching  the  Duke,  even  alleging  a  slight  deaf- 
ness of  his  own,  in  order  to  induce  them  to  speak  louder. 
The  enraged  Burgundian  counsellor  reported  what  was 
said;  and  thereafter  when  St.  Pol  in  person  came  to  the 
Duke,  on  the  latter's  safe-conduct,  he  was  seized,  and 
handed  over  for  final  execution  to  King  Louis,  who,  after 
trial,  cut  his  head  off. 

Commynes  was  no  Don  Quixote.  He  viewed  intrigue 
as  he  did  war,  of  which  he  said,  "  qui  a  le  prouffit  de  la 
guerre,  il  en  a  d'honneur."  But  there  was  a  background 
of  honesty  in  him,  and  much  fear,  or  superstition,  as  to 
the  anger  of  God  descending  upon  flagrant  injustice  and 
the  pride  that  puffeth  up.  He  saw  God's  wrath  coming 
on  the  Duke  for  giving  all  the  glory  to  himself,  and  none 
to  God,  and  especially  for  his  treachery  in  delivering  up 
St.  Pol.  Profoundly  his  narrative  shows  Charles  a  fatal 
fool,  a  man  of  rage  and  weakness,  whom  in  the  end  God 
or  his  own  fitting  fate  would  not  fail  to  destroy. 

If  the  drama  ended  fitly  as  to  Charles,  it  ended  as  fitly 
with  the  King.  He  was  no  man  to  be  so  foolishly  undone 
as  the  potentate  whom  he  deftly  helped  Fortune  undo. 
Yet  his  ambition  might  vault  too  eagerly.  In  the  matter 
of  the  Burgundian  succession  after  Charles's  death,  all 
that  Louis  had  been  scheming  and  fighting  for  throughout 
his  reign  seemed  within  his  reach.  He  was  then  unwisely 
grasping.  Although  he  got  the  land  of  Burgundy,  it 
would  have  been  better  not  to  have  driven  the  Duke's 
daughter,  with  all  her  rich  Flanders  towns,  to  the  arms 
and  wedlock  of  Austria.  Commynes  seems  to  think  that 
God  had  rather  darkened  the  King's  mind.  He  suffered, 
to  be  sure,  no  outward  overthrow;  yet  he  declined  through 
many  months  of  premature  old  age,  consumed  with  lust 
of  power  which  was  slipping  from  his  senile  hands,  and 
tortured  with  fears  of  surely  approaching  death. 
Through  his  whole  life  of  scheming  greed,  Louis  was  beset 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  287 

with  superstition.  He  practised  astrology  continually, 
and  grovelled  before  graven  images,  and  that  chief  graven 
image  of  a  purchasable  God!  It  is  an  impressive  psycho- 
logical picture  that  Commynes  draws  of  the  King's  slow 
end  —  of  his  months  and  years  of  dying,  his  vacillations, 
yet  tricking  to  the  last  his  enemies,  and  sending  them  far 
and  wide  to  other  countries  for  horses  and  dogs  so  that  his 
foreign  rivals  might  suppose  him  strong  enough  to  hunt; 
he  never  looked  at  these  purchases  when  they  had  been 
brought.  He  held  on  to  every  thread  of  power  and  au- 
thority, the  ruler  in  him  outlasting  his  strength.  He  was 
maddened  with  desire  for  life,  and  paid  incredible  sums 
to  his  physician,  besides  sending  far  and  wide  for  relics 
with  healing  virtues,  and  calling  a  famous  hermit  to  come 
and  restore  him  by  his  interposition.  Profoundly  un- 
happy, and  profoundly  foolish,  he  would  not  see  the 
emptiness  of  the  husks  he  clung  to. 

One  might  have  preferred  Charles's  bloody  death  to 
Louis's  bed-ridden  end.  Commynes  is  impartial  in  the 
long  chapter  on  the  small  joys  and  the  great  pains  that 
Louis  had  from  being  a  tireless  scheming  King,  and  those 
which  came  to  Charles  from  being  a  rich  and  powerful 
and  consumingly  ambitious  Duke.  From  "  I'enfance  et 
I'innocence  "  Louis  had  every  toil  and  trouble,  with  twenty 
days  of  travail  and  annoyance  to  one  of  pleasure.  It  had 
been  the  same  with  Charles — "  toujours  travail,  sans  nul 
plaisir.  .  .  .  car  la  gloire  luy  monta  au  cueur  " :  —  and 
the  end  was  defeat  and  death.  Nor  were  other  rulers  of 
the  time  much  more  fortunate.  And  Commynes  con- 
cludes his  disquisition: 

"  So  you  see  the  death  of  all  these  great  men  in  so  short  a  while, 
who  labored  for  glory  and  to  aggrandize  themselves,  and  suffered 
such  pains  and  passions,  shortening  their  lives  and  imperilling  their 
souls.  Here  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  Turk,  who  is  lodged  with 
his  predecessors!  As  to  our  King,  I  have  hope  that  our  Lord  has 
had  pity  on  him,  and  on  the  others,  if  it  please  Him.  But,  humanly 
speaking,  ....  would  it  not  have  stood  him  in  better  stead,  and 
the  others  too,  and  men  of  moderate  estate  as  well,  ...  to  choose 
the  middle  path  in  these  things?  To  worry  and  labor  less,  and 
undertake  less ;  to  have  more  fear  of  offending  God,  and  persecut- 


288  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ing  the  people  and  their  neighbors  by  all  the  cruel  means  I  have 
been  speaking  of,  and  to  take  ease  through  honest  pleasures.  Their 
lives  would  have  been  longer;  sickness  would  not  have  come  so 
soon;  and  their  death  would  be  more  regretted  and  .  .  .  less  de- 
sired ;  and  they  would  have  less  fear  of  death."  ^ 

One  remembers  that  Commynes  wrote  In  his  later  years, 
when  he  was  sorely  scratched  by  brambles;  for  at  Louis's 
death,  he  fell  from  power,  and  was  beset  by  foes,  who 
wished  to  despoil  him  of  part  of  the  huge  estates  he  had 
gained  In  Louis's  service  —  honestly?  That  Is  no  simple 
question.  Commynes  was  a  good  manager,  a  quick  ac- 
cepter of  emoluments;  he  cared  for  riches;  and  he  was  a 
man  of  piety,  who  feared  God,  and  His  way  of  upsetting 
the  too  flagrant  and  Insolent  wrong-doer.  The  iron  had 
entered  Into  Commynes's  soul  and  Into  his  view  of  life 
when  he  wrote. 

This  man  of  common  sense  and  craft  was  a  desplser  of 
chlvalr}^  and  Its  vain-glory;  he  believed  In  managing  men, 
rather  than  lighting;  diplomacy  was  his  metier;  worldly 
sagacity  was  what  he  admired.  The  seventeenth, 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  chapters  In  his  fifth  book  give 
his  views  on  public  affairs.  He  has  been  telling  how  the 
men  of  Ghent,  after  Charles's  death,  executed  certain  of 
his  noble  ministers  In  spite  of  his  daughter's  protests,  and 
of  other  doings  of  the  people  of  this  city  —  a  city  for 
which  Commynes  has  little  use ! 

**  And  I  cannot  think  w^hy  God  has  so  long  preserved  this  city 
of  Ghent,  from  which  so  many  ills  have  come,  and  which  is  of  so 
little  utility  for  the  land  and  the  public  interests  of  the  land  where 
it  is  situated,  and  much  less  for  its  Prince;  and  it  is  not  like  Bruges, 
which  is  a  great  gathering-place  of  merchandise  and  foreigners, 
u'here  possibly  more  merchandise  is  handled  than  in  any  other  city 
of  Europe,  and  it  would  be  an  irreparable  loss  if  it  were  destroyed." 

Having  delivered  himself  thus  regarding  Ghent,  Com- 
mynes feels  there  may  be  other  considerations.  "  Indeed 
It  seems  to  me  that  God  has  created  nothing  In  this  world, 

neither  men  nor  beasts,  without  making  its  contrary  to 

r.'T  .    •  . 

^  Liv.  VI,  ch.  12. 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  289 

keep  It  In  fear  and  humility.  And  so  this  city  of  Ghent 
does  very  well  where  it  Is;  for  that  country  [Flanders]  Is 
the  most  given  to  pleasure  .  .  .  and  pomps  and  lavish 
spending.  They  are  good  Christians,  and  God  Is  well 
served  and  honored  there.^  It  Is  not  the  only  people  to 
whom  God  has  given  a  thorn."  And  he  proceeds  to  speak 
of  France  as  having  England  for  an  opposite,  and  Eng- 
land, as  having  Scotland,  and  so  through  the  rest  of 
Europe.  These  checks  and  thorns  which  God  has  set  In 
every  state  and  for  every  person  are  necessary: — "  et 
de  prime  face,  et  parlant  comme  homme  non  lettre."^  .  .  . 
princlpallement  pour  la  bestiallte  de  plusleurs  princes,  et 
aussi  pour  la  mauvalstle  d'aultres,  qui  ont  sens  assez  et 
experience,  mals  lis  en  veulent  mal  user," —  and  Com- 
mynes  expresses  the  opinion  that  learning  may  make  evil 
princes  worse,  but  will  improve  the  good.  Yet  knowledge 
can  teach  even  an  evil  prince  the  fear  of  God  and  the 
limits  to  the  power  which  God  has  given  him  over  his 
subjects. 

Commynes  concludes  that  neither  natural  reason  nor 
our  common  sense  (nostre  sens),  nor  the  fear  of  God, 
nor  the  love  of  our  neighbor,  nor  anything  (riens)  will 
keep  us  from  doing  violence  to  each  other.  And  so  God 
Is  constrained  to  beat  us  with  many  rods  for  our  "  bestial- 
lte "  and  "  mauvalstle," —  and  especially  princes  of 
whose  ways  Commynes  gives  a  severe  picture;  their  out- 
rages upon  neighbors,  Injustice  toward  the  nobles  serving 
them,  and  toward  the  common  people  whom  they  oppress 
with  taxes  and  exactions.  Commynes  maintains  that  no 
prince  has  the  right  to  make  any  levy  on  his  subjects,  with- 
out their  consent,  except  within  his  own  domain;  and  he 
admires  England  as  the  realm  where  least  violence  is  done 
the  people  and  the  public  weal  is  best  cared  for.  The 
King  of  France  has  no  excuse  for  asserting  the  privilege 
of  levying  on  his  subjects  at  his  pleasure.  His  true  praise 
lies  In  having  good  and  loyal  subjects  that  will  refuse  him 

6  He  says  the  same  of  Venice.     Liv.  VII,  ch.  i8. 

"^  One  bears  in  mind  that  neither  Commynes  nor  Louis  nor  Charles  had 
part  as  yet  in  the  new  fashions  of  learning  already  prevalent  in  Italy. 
They  are  sheer  French. 


290  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

nothing.  And  Commynes  praises  the  great  loyalty  of 
the  French  toward  their  young  King,  Charles  VIII,  to 
whom  though  but  a  child  they  humbly  preferred  their  re- 
quests through  the  assembly  of  the  Trols  Etats  held  after 
his  father's  death;  and  this  notwithstanding  that  the  realm 
had  been  sore  oppressed  by  the  levies  of  the  deceased 
King. 

The  greatest  ills  always  come  from  the  strongest ! 
The  little  people  and  the  poor  find  plenty  who  will  punish 
them  for  cause  or  no  cause;  but  there  is  none  to  punish 
princes  except  God.  And  for  that  reason  God  sets  His 
judgments  on  them,  that  is  to  say  on  the  bad  ones  —  and 
there  are  few  good!  The  ills  they  do  proceed  from  the 
weakness  of  their  belief  in  hell.  Consider  what  a  large 
ransom  King  John  paid  when  taken  captive  by  the  Black 
Prince,  pledging  his  lands  and  Impoverishing  his  realm. 
That  was  to  obtain  release  from  prison !  But  how  little 
he  did  to  avoid  the  evils  which  brought  this  punishment 
upon  him;  and  how  little  would  a  King  do  or  pay  to  escape 
the  pains  of  hell,  which  are  many  times  worse  than  those 
of  an  earthly  prison?  The  111  deeds  of  the  great  are  due 
to  their  lack  of  faith. 

Of  course,  Commynes  has  been  compared  with  his 
younger  Italian  contemporary,  Machiavelll,  and  one  may 
throw  the  still  younger  Guicclardini  into  the  comparison.^ 
Commynes's  protagonist,  I>ouIs,  should  be  compared  with 
Lorenzo  del  Medici,  rather  than  with  MachlavelH's 
Cesare  Borgia.  In  the  first  place  these  Frenchmen  were 
Frenchmen,  and  these  Italians,  Italians:  that  carried  some 
worlds  of  difference  In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies. Next  obviously,  as  the  Frenchmen  were  some- 
what older,  and  as  France  was  tardier  than  Italy  in  the 
new  classical  revival,  and  more  especially  as  both  Com- 
mynes and  his  master  had  "  small  Latin  and  no  Greek," 
these  two  appear  as  primarily  using  their  mother  wit  and 
their  own  political  experience  and  knowledge  of  men  and 
affairs.  Their  educational  background  was  the  ordinary 
schooling,  the  current  literature,  the  Christianity  and  the 

8  Ante,  chapter  IV. 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  291 

royal  or  feudal  policies,  which  prevailed  in  France.  To 
be  sure,  in  the  political  education  of  France  there  had  been 
such  important  foreign  elements  as  the  Civil  Law  and 
the  Politics  of  Aristotle.  But  Lorenzo  embodies  the  new 
classical  culture  of  Italy;  and  Machiavelli  bases  his  theor- 
izing upon  the  wisdom  contained  in  Roman  History.  He 
has  more  learning,  and  In  the  thoroughness  of  his  political 
theory  is  as  superior  to  Commynes  as  he  is  inferior  to  him 
in  practical  shrewdness  and  tact.  Gulcclardini  also  excels 
the  Frenchman  in  his  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  poli- 
tics, and  may  have  been  his  equal  In  practical  ability:  but 
he  Is  more  utterly  corrupt,  being  a  creature  of  that  polit- 
ical corruption  which  rendered  Italian  statecraft  impotent. 
The  politics  of  Commynes  were  more  possible,  embracing 
happy  makeshifts  of  reasoning,  such  as  a  wholesome  con- 
viction that  exceptional  wickedness  or  pride  would  come 
to  ruin,  through  God's  punishments,  —  an  Idea  as  funda- 
mentally sound  as  the  Aeschylean  conception  of  I'/Spt?, 
the  vain-glory  of  Insolence,  bringing  the  tyrant  low. 
This  thought  was  absent  from  the  brains  either  of  Mach- 
iavelli or  Gulcclardini.  One  queries  whether  It  could  be 
found  in  the  conduct  of  Louis  XI,  who  treated  his  God 
as  purchasable.  One  notes  that  his  addiction  to  astrology 
is  not  to  be  connected  with  the  Italian  classical  revival, 
which  strengthened  this  pseudo-science  In  fifteenth  century 
Italy. 

So  France  became  a  strong  and  united  kingdom,  whose 
forces  could  be  used  by  its  Kings  in  vain  endeavors  to 
extend  their  rule  over  other  countries.  The  fact  that 
the  monarch  had  become  the  one  source  of  land  and  gold 
and  honors  tended  to  renew  the  loyalty  of  the  nobility  in 
warlike  devotion  to  the  royal  fortunes.  Feudalism  sank 
to  a  reactionary  tradition,  which  might  on  occasions  assert 
Itself  disastrously.  And  through  the  reigns  of  Louis's 
successors,  royalty,  following  its  caprice  or  taste,  patron- 
ized learning  and  literature  and  art,  and  court  life  sug- 
gested the  topics  of  art  and  literature,  and  affected  their 
treatment. 


292  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Louis  XI  and  Commynes,  his  expounder,  were  not  af- 
fected by  Italy  and  classical  humanism.  The  forces  of 
previous  French  development,  those  making  for  the  fruits 
of  this  world  and  those  incited  by  the  luridly  imagined 
next,  still  energized  in  their  faculties,  and  led  forward  the 
society  within  which  and  upon  which  these  two  political 
personages  worked  so  effectively.  Agriculture  and  trade 
and  the  industrial  crafts  had  laid  the  material  foundation. 
Mechanical  experimental  methods  contributed,  proving 
themselves  in  many  ways,  for  example  in  the  effectiveness 
of  the  French  artillery.  A  select  few  were  Interested  In 
the  more  rational  or  theoretical  physical  sciences  which 
had  been  developed  from  statements  and  premises  of  Aris- 
totle, or  by  departing  from  them.^  A  still  vigorous  fac- 
tor In  thought  and  life  was  the  scholastic  theology  whose 
home  was  the  University  of  Paris.  For  literature,  there 
was  the  mediaeval  cumulation  of  fabliaux,  chansons,  Ar- 
thurian and  antique  romance,  and  such  chronicles  as  those 
of  Frolssart,  his  predecessors  and  successors.  The 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  composed  of  the  allegorical  Idyl  of  De 
Lorrls  and  the  cynical  encyclopaedia  of  De  Meung,  was 
popular  and  influential.  The  period  was  still  mainly 
mediaeval  In  literary  taste  and  theme;  though  the  old 
motifs  were  breaking,  and  losing  their  vitality. 

The  fifteenth  century  writers  of  prose  and  verse  mani- 
fest few  distinctive  qualities.  Among  them  was  the  first 
of  professional  literary  women,  Christine  de  Pisan,  a 
Venetian  by  birth,  but  living  In  France,  and  a  good  French 
patrlot.^^  She  wrote  Interminable  verse,  and  In  her  old 
age  greeted  the  glory  of  Jean  d'Arc,  dying  shortly  after 
1429.  Somewhat  younger  was  Alain  Chartier,  a  student 
of  Sallust,  LIvy,  Cicero,  but  more  generally  of  Seneca. 
He  was  the  author  of  tedious,  moralizing  poems,  but 
used  a  prose  which  we  may  think  his  loyal  heart,  stung 
by  his  country's  disasters,  had  helped  to  strengthen  and 

^  See  articles  by  Duhem,  La  dynamiqiie  parisienne,  in  Bulletin  Italien, 
Vols.  X,  XI.  XII,  and  XIII,  and  post,  chapter  XXXI. 

^0  See  sufficiently  in  Petit  de  Julleville,  Histoire  de  la  langue  et  de  la 
litterature   franqaise,  Vol.  2,   pp.   357  sqq. 


LOUIS  XI  AND  COMMYNES  293 

ennoble.  He  could  not  free  himself  from  the  mediaeval 
conventional  setting  of  a  dream  even  in  those  works  of 
moving  patriotism,  where  he  adjured  the  nobility,  the 
clergy,  and  the  people  of  France  to  have  pity  on  their 
mother's  misery.^^  His  mind  revolved  around  the  dis- 
aster of  Agincourt  and  the  defection  of  Burgundy.  The 
lighter  nature  of  Charles  d'Orleans  might  have  revolved 
about  the  same,  since  his  father  had  been  murdered  by  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  he  had  himself  been  taken  pris- 
oner at  that  battle,  and  not  liberated  until  twenty-five 
years  after,  in  1440.  Belonging  to  a  race  of  Kings,  he 
was  an  amateur  of  letters,  and  a  clever  maker  of  small 
poems.  His  faculty  of  verse  was  as  a  light  skiff,  which 
would  have  labored  under  heavy  freight.  Its  usual  theme 
was  love,  treated  prettily,  takingly,  conventionally,  and 
sometimes  bitterly.  Anything  in  his  poetry  might  have 
been  written  and  appreciated  a  hundred  years  before;  and 
nothing  in  his  cherished  library  indicated  any  taste  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  fourteenth  century. ^^  He  died  an 
old  man  in  1465,  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XI;  about  the 
same  time  that  death  put  out  the  flame  of  Frangois  Villon. 
It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  this  thief  and  murderer,  whose 
vivid  gift  of  verse  was  rendered  mordant  by  the  bitterly 
insistent,  hateful  sense  of  death.  Death  pervaded  his 
verse,  making  a  mephitic  atmosphere.  This  man  of  de- 
bauch and  need  execrated  the  cruelty  which  withheld  from 
him  gold  and  wine.  Villain  life  would  not  keep  him 
gratis  in  his  lusts!  It  is  the  old  false  cry:  had  one  his 
desire,  he  would  do  no  crime  I  "  Povre  je  suis  de  ma  jeu- 
ness  " —  little  had  he  through  the  heated  years  of  youth, 
nor  In  "  I'entree  de  viellesse,"  in  his  thirtieth  year! 
Prison  had  eaten  body  and  soul.  Villon  saw  that  his  end 
might  not  even  be  a  filthy  grave,  but  the  gallows,  to  which 
he  was  once  condemned,  where  he  would  be  pecked  by  pies 
and  crows  till  his  skeleton  rattled  in  the  wind. 

11  In  the  Quadrilogue,  see  Petit  de  Julleville,  o.  c.  2,  pp.  366  sqq. 
There  is  a  monograph  on  Alain  Chartier  by  D.  Delaunay  (Rennes  1876) 
in  which  examples  of  Chartier's  passionate  eloquence  are  given. 

12  See  Pierre  Champion,  La  librairie  de  Charles  d'Orleans  (Paris  1910)  : 
also  Poesies  de  Charles  d'Orleans  ed.  Giiichard  (Paris  1842). 


294  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Ne  soiez  done  de  nostre  confrairie; 

Mais  priex  Dieu  que  tous  nous  vueille  absouldre! 

He  had  the  common  knowledge  of  the  schools;  but  that 
scarcely  affected  a  nature  aflame  with  self.  His  verse  was 
the  utterance  of  this  self,  the  cry  of  a  thief  and  murderer, 
and  yet  the  cry  of  a  battered  human  soul,  quivering  with 
its  ills.  This  cry  was  an  envenomed  melody  of  pain.  No 
such  vibrant  lyric  note  had  been  heard  in  France. ^"^ 

13  The  English  reader   may  be   referred  to  Poems   of  Franqois   Villon, 
translated  by  H.  De  V.  Stackpoole    (1914). 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOME    FRENCH    HUMANISTS 

In  the  France  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  took  place 
a  revival  of  classical  studies,  partly  through  suggestion 
and  assistance  from  Italy,  Germany  and  Flanders.  The 
movement  had  power  and  volume  and  was  to  exceed  all 
previous  attainment.  It  even  presents  in  vigorous  ac- 
celeration the  successive  stages  for  which  analogous 
phases  of  the  study  of  antique  thought  had  required  a 
number  of  mediaeval  centuries.  That  is  to  say,  one  sees 
a  time  of  learning  and  appropriation,  and  then  use  Is  made 
of  the  new  or  Increased  material  through  constructive  or 
Imitative  efforts  in  the  fields  of  physical  study  and  observa- 
tion, imaginative  and  reflective  literature,  and  the  plastic 
arts. 

Standing  on  the  shoulders  of  the  efficient  past,  sixteenth 
century  France,  vigorous,  compact,  brimming  with  life, 
reaches  out  for  gain  and  adventure  In  military  enterprise 
and  distant  exploration;  reaches  for  pleasure  in  the  inter- 
course of  courts.  In  the  grateful  ennoblement  of  life 
through  poetry  and  its  luxurious  adornment  through  archi- 
tecture, sculpture  and  painting;  reaches  also  for  further 
fact  and  human  values  through  classical  studies,  and 
through  observation  and  reflection,  and  for  a  better  verity 
In  religion.  The  time's  progressive  energies  may  have 
equalled  those  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  French  cen- 
turies, though  their  specific  activities  differed;  and  In  the 
sixteenth  century  French  development  was  more  depen- 
dent on  stimulus  and  aid  from  other  countries.  The  clas- 
sical scholarship  of  the  twelfth  century  in  France,  the  scho- 
lastic philosophy  of  that  century  and  the  next,  and  French 
Gothic  cathedrals,  were  not  due  to  suggestion  and  assist- 
ance from  contemporary  foreigners,  although  the  master- 
ful   French    culture    might    accept    teachers    as    well    as 

295 


296  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

students  from  abroad.  Paris  was  par  excellence  the  pro- 
ductive centre  of  philosophy  and  theology  In  the  thirteenth 
century;  and  if  Albertus  and  Aquinas,  Roger  Bacon  and 
Duns  Scotus  were  born  in  other  lands,  they  gravitated  to 
Paris  as  of  course. 

With  reference  to  the  antecedents  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury classical  revival,  one  may  remark  that  Petrarch's  visit 
to  the  French  Court  in  1361,  as  the  VIscontl's  ambassador, 
was  not  without  its  awakening  influences.  His  ornate 
Latin  orations  were  full  of  antique  suggestions.  Some  of 
his  Latin  writings,  and  Boccaccio's  also,  were  rendered 
into  French,  and  then  the  Decameron.  ^  Translations 
were  made  of  Cicero's  de  Senectiite  and  de  Amicitia,  and 
of  the  Ethics  and  Politics  of  Aristotle,  the  latter,  of 
course,  from  Latin  versions.  The  Roman  history  of  LIvy 
was  translated  too,  v/hich  would  serve  to  diffuse  a  different 
Idea  of  Rome  from  that  In  the  "  Romans  de  Rome  la 
grant."  These  works  of  translation  and  the  classical 
studies  of  which  they  were  the  fruit,  helped  to  develop  the 
French  language.  Latin  words  pressed  themselves  Into 
the  rough  and  graceless  verses  of  one  considerable  poet, 
Eustache  Deschamps,  In  whom  a  national  feeling  Is  begin- 
ning to  find  voice. 

The  Inchoate  classical  movement  centres  In  the  reign  of 
Charles  V  (1364-1380),  a  king  Interested  In  letters  and 
susceptible  to  their  Influence.  He  had  assembled  a  large 
library,  which  naturally  was  quite  mediaeval  in  its  books. 
Among  the  king's  counsellors  was  Nicholas  Oresme,  the 
principal  translator  of  Aristotle.  Through  him  Aris- 
totle's Ideas  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  royal  govern- 
ment. A  younger  man  than  Oresme  was  devoted  to 
humane  letters  more  entirely  for  their  own  sake.  Jean  de 
Montreuil  saw  the  light  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  perished  In  141 8  at  the  hands  of 
the  Burgundlan  faction.  He  was  secretary  to  the  un- 
happy Charles  VI,  and  employed  by  him  on  diplomatic 

1  The  Decameron  was  barbarously  translated  about  1414,  and  a  good 
translation  by  Le  Macon  made  about  1545.  See  Henri  Hauvette,  Les 
plus  anciennes  traductions  franqaises  de  Boccaccio,  Bulletin  Italien,  Vols- 
VII,  VIII  and  X, 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  p.97 

missions.  While  on  a  mission  to  Italy  in  141 2,  he  met 
Coluccio  and  the  younger  humanists,  Bruni  and  NIccolo 
Niccoll.  Naturally,  he  admired  his  Italian  friends,  and 
revered  the  departed  Petrarch,  whose  works  seemed  to 
him  to  rank  with  the  classics  themselves.  His  own  taste 
had  already  made  him  a  student  of  Cicero  and  Terence. 
He  exerted  himself  and  sought  the  aid  of  friends,  to 
collect  a  library.  In  fine,  he  appears  as  an  enthusiastic 
humanist.  But  when  the  Burgundlans  broke  Into  Paris  in 
141 8,  and  killed  him  with  his  like-minded  friend,  Gontler 
Col,  there  survived  no  one  now  known  to  fame  blessed 
with  a  disinterested  love  of  letters. 

Classical  studies  were  continued  rather  lifelessly  under 
the  grey  reign  of  Louis  XI.  One  FIchet  printed  a 
rhetoric  at  Paris,  and  his  disciple  Gaguin  an  Ars 
Fersiftcatoria.^  For  printing  was  now  established  In  the 
leading  French  cities,  an  incalculable  potential  gain.  Yet 
the  presses  were  busied  mainly  v/Ith  what  either  was 
written  or  was  used  In  the  Middle  Ages.  For  example, 
the  Doctrlnale  of  Alexandre  Vllledieu,  most  popular  of 
mediaeval  Latin  grammars,  was  printed  and  reprinted. 
And  the  new  books  offered  little  novelty.  The  lifting  of 
the  spirit  was  very  slow.  It  was  vigorously  stirred  by 
Jacques  Lefevre  of  Etaples,  whose  long  life  did  not  close 
till  1536.  He  was  moved  by  a  strong  desire  for  verity, 
which  led  him  to  seek  better  methods  of  study  and  general 
education;  to  endeavor  likewise  for  a  surer  knowledge  of 
Aristotle,  whom  he  deemed  chief  of  philosophers  and  salu- 
tary to  the  Christian  soul;  and  above  all  to  search  out  a 
truer  understanding  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  No  more 
than  Roger  Bacon,  does  Lefevre  Impress  one  as  touched 
by  the  literary  charm  of  the  classics.  And  although  he 
was  an  incitement  to  others  in  their  quest  for  truth,  he 
was  not  himself  a  good  Greek  scholar  at  a  time  when 
Greek  was  coming  to  be  regarded  as  necessary  for  the 
best  understanding  of  the  word  of  God.     Knowledge  of 

2  Gaguin  was  an  energetic  scholar.  On  Gaguin,  Lefevre  and  others, 
see  Tilley,  Daivn  of  the  French  Renaissance,  Chapters  VI-VIII  (1918). 
For  Lefevre  see  post,  Chapter  XVII,  I, 


298  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  Greek  language  was  established  in  France  by  the 
labors  of  Guillaume  Bude. 

Bude  was  born  in  Paris  in  1468,  of  a  substantial  bour- 
geois family  who  for  some  generations  had  held  positions 
in  the  royal  administration.  When  a  boy,  he  was  sent 
to  Orleans  to  study  law.  There  he  proved  a  slack  and 
pleasure-loving  student,  and  after  returning  to  Paris  con- 
tinued his  gay  life.  When  twenty-three,  as  from  some 
sudden  change  of  heart,  passing  from  youth  to  manhood, 
he  gave  himself  earnestly  to  the  Civil  Law,  studying  at 
first  the  Commentators.  He  soon  pushed  back  through 
them  to  the  text  of  the  Pandects.  There  he  found  himself 
with  the  veritable  ancients,  though  still  the  Latins.  The 
thirst  for  Greek  came  over  him.  Scarcely  a  Greek  manu- 
script w^as  to  be  had,  and  the  one  old  Greek  available  as 
an  instructor  was  incompetent.  Bude's  zeal  and  genius 
surmounted  even  such  insurmountable  obstacles.  When 
a  few  years  later  Charles  VIII  brought  wnth  him  from 
Italy  the  famous  Grecian  Lascaris,  Bude,  already  a  good 
Greek  scholar,  clave  to  him.  Lascaris's  stay  in  Paris  was 
all  too  short;  but  he  left  his  precious  books  with  Bude, 
who  had  already  proved  his  knowledge  by  producing  more 
than  one  translation.  He  occupied  a  small  post  in  a 
government  office,  and  was  twice  included  in  an  embassy 
to  Italy,  where  he  made  acquaintance  with  men  and  books. 
Through  the  reigns  of  Charles  VIII  and  Louis  XII,  he 
worked  with  zeal,  neglecting  the  chances  of  emolument  at 
Court,  whither  his  reputation  for  learning  had  penetrated. 
Later  he  found  a  real  patron  of  letters  in  Francis  I,  as 
he  found  a  friend  in  the  King's  sister,  Marguerite. 

Bude  became  an  enormous  and  universal  scholar.  He 
was  the  incarnation  of  the  beginning  of  Greek  studies  in 
France;  the  incarnation  too  of  the  scholarship  whose 
instinct  is  to  penetrate  to  the  source,  as  he  showed  in 
his  Annotationes  on  the  four  and  twenty  books  of  the 
Pandects.  The  Bologna  school  of  Jurists,  working  from 
the  twelfth  century  onwards,  had  rescued  and  explained 
this  great  and  veritable  source  of  jurisprudence.  But 
now  that  some  centuries  had  passed,  the  commentaries  of 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  299 

these  glossators  and  their  successors,  especially  the  great 
commentaries  of  Accurslus  and  Bartolus,  were  studied, 
rather  than  the  original  texts.  Bude's  work  was  again 
revolutionary.  In  that  his  Annotationes  were  directed  to 
a  renewed  and  better  explanation  of  those  texts,  not  re- 
jecting the  assistance  of  the  Commentators.  But  his 
notes  were  Interspersed  with  scornful  attacks  upon  the 
wretched  Accurslans  and  Bartollsts  who  in  barbarous 
Latin  blindly  followed  the  Commentators  even  In  their 
contradictions.  Bude's  work  did  more  than  represent  a 
return  to  the  methods  of  the  best  period  of  the  Bologna 
school,  for  It  proceeded  with  a  clearer  historical  perspec- 
tive and  with  the  application  of  a  philological  erudition 
which  they  had  not  possessed.  He  sought  to  establish  a 
better  text,  and  to  give  truer  explanations  of  Its  meaning. 
Nor  did  he  stop  there;  but  through  an  unprecedented 
knowledge  of  Roman  history  and  Institutions,  he  advanced 
to  a  broader  explanation  of  those  Roman  customs  and  in- 
stitutions, a  knowledge  of  v/hlch  was  taken  for  granted  by 
the  juris-consults  of  the  Pandects.  He  cast  further  light 
on  matters  of  Interest  or  difficulty  through  abundant 
Greek  citations,  which  he  always  translated  Into  Latin. 

When  the  Annotationes  had  been  pubHshed,  and  had 
aroused  attention  and  applause,  Bude  undertook  a  work 
nominally  upon  Roman  coinage,  but  In  reality  containing  a 
store  of  information  touching  all  antiquity.  It  appeared 
in  15 15  under  the  title  of  De  Asse  et  partihus  eiiis  and 
was  greeted  with  acclaim,  and  some  disparagement;  Its 
fame  has  not  entirely  passed  away.  Its  author  showed  no 
care  for  methodical  exposition,  and  may  have  lacked  the 
gift.  The  main  purpose  of  the  work,  if  It  had  one,  was 
to  determine  the  weights  and  values  of  the  ancient  moneys 
and  measures.  To  this  end  Bude  subjected  to  review  the 
ancient  literature,  comparing  the  Innumerable  passages 
bearing  on  the  matter,  and  endeavoring  to  extract  from 
them  some  certain  data  which  might  be  expressed  In  the 
weights  and  measures  of  his  time.  He  recognized  the 
complexity  of  such  problems,  and  his  critical  sense  was 
not  satisfied  with  plausible  results,  but  weighed  every  atom 


300  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  the  confusing  testimony,  as  he  had  actually  weighed 
every  ancient  coin  that  he  could  find.  He  used  his  con- 
clusions very  intelligently  to  form  estimates  of  the  wealth 
and  expenditures  of  the  Romans.  So  enormous  was  the 
mass  and  variety  of  citations,  that  the  work  became  a 
thesaurus  of  ancient  literature.  Bude  introduced  several 
long  digressiones,  in  which  he  set  forth  his  views  on  vital 
topics,  showing  in  these  personal  opinions  his  French 
patriotism  and  hjs  Christian  piety.  He  denied  the  sole 
glory  of  Italy  in  scholarship  —  might  not  the  air  and 
soil  of  France  produce  as  good?  The  trouble  lay  with 
the  great,  who  deemed  the  arts  of  peace  below  their 
dignity.  He  also  made  it  appear,  what  indeed  had  been 
evident  throughout  the  treatise,  that  the  ancient  literary 
worthies  occupied  no  unapproachable  pinnacle  in  his  mind; 
he  could  criticize  their  faults,  moral  and  intellectual,  and 
especially  their  failure  to  appreciate  Christianity.  ^ 

Bude  accomplished  other  feats  of  scholarship.  Such 
was  his  Commentarii  Linguae  Graecae,  published  in  1529, 
a  work  of  great  use  to  younger  scholars.  Then  in  his 
dialogue  De  Philologia,  he  pleaded  for  the  universal  study 
of  antique  letters,  as  he  did  in  the  only  French  composition 
bearing  his  name :  De  r Institution  du  Prince.  As  for  his 
last  large  book,  De  Ti'ansitu  Hellenismi  ad  Christian- 
tsviiim  (1534)  the  title  held  implicitly  the  argument  for 
Greek,  which  the  body  of  the  treatise  expanded  into  an 
exposition  of  Greek  philosophy  as  a  preparation  for 
Christianity.  And  he  defended  Greek  from  the  imputa- 
tion of  heresy,  cast  upon  it  by  the  Sorbonne. 

This  great  scholar's  name  has  rightly  gained  honor 
from  his  efforts  to  prevail  on  Francis  to  establish  chairs 
for  "  lecteurs  royaux,"  who  should  teach  letters  and 
science  for  the  ends  of  scholarship  and  knowledge,  with- 
out regard  to  the  demands  of  theology,  —  so  insistent  at 
the  Sorbonne.  These  chairs  of  Greek  and  Hebrew,  Latin 
and  Mathematics,  were  the  beginnings  of  the  Royal  Col- 
lege which  in  time  became  the  "  College  de  France." 

Bude  had  his  disciples  and  collaborators.     Before  his 

3  Thus  far  J  have  followed  L.  Delarnelle,  Guillaume  Bude  (Paris  1907). 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  301 

Commentaries  of  the  Greek  Language  were  published, 
French  presses  had  printed  two  books  of  the  Iliad,  Plato's 
Cratyliis,  the  Tragedies  of  Sophocles,  and  parts  of  Aris- 
tophanes. In  1539,  Francis  I  commanded  the  casting  of 
those  beautiful  Greek  types  which  were  to  be  the  model 
for  future  Greek  lettering,  and  in  noble  language  ap- 
pointed Conrad  Neobar  royal  printer,  confiding  to  him 
the  printing  of  Greek  books.*  The  royal  patronage 
proved  an  incentive  to  Greek  studies.  Francis  charged 
the  French  Ambassador  at  Venice  with  the  purchase  of 
manuscripts  for  his  Hbrary  at  Fontainebleau,  and  assisted 
a  scholar  named  Belon  to  undertake  a  voyage  of  discovery 
through  Greece  and  Asia  Minor. 

The  names  of  two  young  and  exceedingly  refractory 
scholars,  poets,  satirists,  litterateurs,  however  one  may 
characterize  them,  were  Bonaventure  des  Periers  and 
Estienne  Dolet.  They  were  born  about  the  same  time 
(1508  or  1509).  The  former  died  by  his  own  hand  in 
1544,  and  two  years  later  the  latter  was  burnt  in  the  Place 
Maubert  for  his  obnoxious  personality  and  opinions.  He 
also  may  be  said  to  have  perished  by  his  own  violent  will. 

Des  Periers  was  valet  de  chambre,  or  secretary,  to 
Marguerite  of  Navarre.  He  held  and  expressed  strong 
sympathies  for  the  Inciplently  reformed  religion,  like 
Marguerite  herself,  or  Marot  and  Lefevre  d'fitaples 
and  Bude.  But  he  passed  on  to  a  satirical  scepticism 
about  the  year  1536,  when  Calvin  published  his  Institutio, 
which  was  to  bring  Catholics,  reformers,  and  we  may 
add,  humanists,  to  sharply  opposed  self-consciousness. 
Either  a  reaction  against  its  tone  and  tenets,  or  other 
jarring  or  awakening  Influences,  or  his  own  clever  carping 
soul,  evoked  from  Des  Periers  those  four  allegorical 
satires  In  dialogue  form,  which  he  called  the  Cymbalum 
Miindi  en  francoys.  As  dramatis  personae  under  mythi- 
cal and  fictitious  Latin  names,  the  Catholic  church  and 
its  institutions,  as  well  as  Luther  and  Erasmus,  were  made 
ridiculous.  Catholics  and  Reformers  united  to  suppress 
both  book  and  author.     Marguerite  had  to  dismiss  him, 

4  See  Egger,  VHellenisme  en  France,  Vol.  I,  Lee.  9. 


302  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  after  two  or  three  years  of  trouble  and  perhaps  in- 
cipient insanity,  he  killed  himself.  He  was  a  good  story- 
teller, and  a  poet  of  sensitiveness  and  feeling,  who  held 
himself  a  disciple  of  Marot.  He  also  made  French  trans- 
lations from  the  classics,  like  his  friend,  Dolet. 

Dolet  was  a  youth  of  exaggerated  self-conceit  and 
intractable  temper:  precocious  scholar,  zealous  worker, 
addicted  to  scurrilous  depreciation  of  others,  a  captious, 
impossible  young  man.  His  importance  is  rather  facti- 
tious, due  to  his  insistence  on  himself,  by  which  some  of 
his  friends  took  him  at  his  own  value.  They  spoke  of  him 
with  that  sort  of  excess  of  praise  which  marks  the 
friendly  utterances  of  Italian  humanists.^ 

He  was  born  in  Orleans,  and  when  twelve  years  old, 
went  to  study  in  Paris,  where  he  seems  to  have  imbibed 
his  worship  of  Cicero.  From  his  eighteenth  to  his 
twenty-first  year,  he  studied  at  Padua.  The  university 
was  then  in  great  repute.  The  famous  philosopher  and 
teacher  Pomponazzi,  dying  in  1525,  had  left  behind  him 
his  arguments  and  influence,  making  for  paganism  and 
for  disbelief  in  the  personal  Christian  immortality. 
Bembo,  at  the  height  of  his  dignified  reputation,  made  a 
home  of  lettered  affluence  in  Padua  from  1521  to  1539. 
Dolet  studied  under  one  Villanovanus,  a  great  Ciceron- 
ian, and  imbibed  a  love  of  Latin  purity  and  the  art  of 
making  orations  out  of  Ciceronian  phrases.  Upon  his 
teacher's  death,  he  went  to  Venice  as  secretary  to  Jean 
de  Langeac,  bishop  of  Limoges,  and  after  a  year  of  study 
returned  with  the  bishop  to  Toulouse  where,  yielding  to 
persuasion,  he  began  work  on  the  civil  law.  His  detes- 
tation of  Toulouse  the  intolerant  and  superstitious,  the 
archlepiscopal  seat  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  scene  of 
more  burnings  of  Reformers  than  any  other  town  in 
France  save  Paris,  glares  in  his  two  orations  of  Ciceronian 
interpretation.  In  a  letter  to  Bude,  to  whose  greatness 
he  had  obtained  an  epistolary  Introduction,   Dolet  says 

5  Dolet's  importance  may  have  been  enhanced  by  an  interesting  mono- 
graph on  his  time:  Etienne  Dolet,  the  Martyr  of  the  Renaissance,  by] 
R.  C.  Christie  (London  1899,  2nd  Ed.).  I  am  indebted  to  this  work  for 
my  facts  about  Dolet, 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  303 

that  the  Toulousans  are  more  barbarous  than  Scythians. 
So  he  began  his  career  of  polemic  abuse,  which  at  the  out- 
set made  him  enemies  influential  enough  to  bring  about 
his  incarceration,  from  which  only  the  influence  of  distin- 
guished friends  procured  his  release.  So  frequent  were 
to  be  his  subsequent  imprisonments  that  someone  spoke 
of  jail  as  patria  Doleti. 

About  this  time  a  curious  Italian  impostor  swims 
across  Dolet's  ken,  whom  he  treats  with  proper  scorn 
and  ridicule.  It  was  one  Camillo,  who  through  a  life  of 
laborious  humbug,  had  elaborated  a  scheme  of  imparting 
to  anyone  a  perfect  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
the  rest  of  human  knowledge,  in  about  three  months.  He 
devoted  ysars  to  the  perfecting  of  a  sort  of  theatre  of 
pigeon-holes,  each  labelled  with  some  quality  of  the  mind 
or  division  of  knowledge.  With  what  sort  of  key  or 
handle  or  rotary  movement  he  proposed  to  transfer  their 
contents  to  the  minds  of  his  auditors  is  not  clear.  But 
he  made  important  friends  In  Paris,  as  elsewhere,  and 
Francis  I  subscribed  five  hundred  ducats  toward  the 
theatre ! 

Dolet  had  found  Toulouse  too  warm  for  him,  and  had 
withdrawn  to  the  country,  when  he  received  news  that  the 
detested  city  had  made  an  edict  forbidding  his  return.  It 
was  In  the  summer  of  1534,  and  he  decided  to  set  forth  on 
a  two  hundred  and  fifty  mile  tramp  for  Lyons,  where  he 
had  friends  and  Introductions.  Sick  and  exhausted  he 
reached  that  city,  the  second  in  the  realm,  not  merely  for 
wealth  and  numbers,  but  for  culture  and  learning,  and 
where  thought  was  freer  than  In  Paris  under  the  shadows 
of  the  Sorbonne.  Lyons  w^as  filled  with  Italians,  bankers, 
merchants.  Introducers  of  the  silk  Industry,  and  indeed 
governors  of  the  city  in  the  able  and  liberal-minded 
family  of  the  Trivulci.  Rabelais,  Marot,  Servetus  and 
Des  Perlers  sojourned  there,  and  there  published  their 
works,  while  other  scholars  were  frequent  visitors.  The 
new  art  of  printing  had  been  introduced  in  1472,  and  now 
flourished  briskly  at  the  presses  of  many  master-printers, 
Sebastian  Gryphlus  being  the  head  of  that  scholarly  pro- 


304  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

fesslon.  He  had  scholars  (even  the  great  Rabelais)  as 
proof-readers.  Among  these  Dolet  was  enrolled,  and  be- 
tween him  and  the  scholar-printer  sprang  up  one  of  the 
few  unbroken  friendships  of  his  life.  Lyons  remained 
his  home  until  his  death  —  when  he  was  not  fleeing  or  in 
prison,  or  visiting  fatal  Paris. 

In  1528  Erasmus  published  his  dialogue  called  Cicer- 
oniamis  ridiculing  the  pedants  who  would  use  only  the 
words  and  phrases,  even  the  very  tenses  and  cases,  used 
by  Cicero.  The  elder  Scaliger  brought  himself  Into  noto- 
riety by  a  reply  preposterously  abusive,  which  Erasmus 
treated  with  irritating  silence,  and  what  was  worse,  sup- 
posed it  to  have  been  composed  by  another!  Dolet  saw 
fit  to  enter  the  fray  with  a  clever  Dialogue  against  Eras- 
mus, which  brought  on  him  the  censure  of  his  friends  for 
its  intemperance,  and  also  the  wrath  of  Scaliger  for  pre- 
suming to  write  when  he  had  written.  A  certain  Odonus, 
in  a  letter  to  Erasmus's  secretary,  saw  no  reason  why  this 
fool  Dolet  should  be  answered  according  to  his  folly, 
least  of  all  by  the  great  Erasmus.  The  letter  tells  of 
his  wretched  mien,  his  squalor  and  premature  old  age, 
his  monstrous  conceit  and  scurrility.  The  picture  is  not 
more  abusive  than  Dolet  would  have  drawn  of  his  reviler. 

Dolet  wrote  this  dialogue  in  Paris,  when  he  was  there 
in  1534  trying  to  obtain  the  royal  permission  for  the  pub- 
lication of  his  Commentaries.  The  time  was  inopportune. 
That  fatal  tirade  against  the  Mass,  posted  In  an  October 
night  throughout  the  city,  had  driven  the  King  to  violent 
measures  against  heresy  and  enlightened  thought.  A  year 
of  persecution  and  burnings  ensued,  with  edicts  forbid- 
ding the  printing  of  all  books.  If  Dolet  had  Influential 
friends,  Bude  among  them,  he  had  also  active  enemies, 
and  he  failed  to  obtain  the  permission.  So  he  returned 
to  Lyons  and  began  the  task  of  printing  the  huge  work, — 
its  first  folio  of  seventeen  hundred  pages.  About  a  year 
afterwards,  Gryphlus  obtained  the  sought-for  license,  with 
exclusive  right  for  four  years,  to  print  a  book  entitled 
Commentaries  on  the  Latin  Tongue  by  Estienne  Dolet. 

There  was  broader  scholarship  in  Robert  Estienne's 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  305 

Latin  Thesaurus^  which  was  a  huge  dictionary  alphabeti- 
cally arranged.  But  Dolet  classified  his  words  according 
to  the  connection  of  their  ideas,  and  commented  upon  their 
interrelated  meanings.  In  this  he  claimed  originality. 
His  illustrative  examples,  especially  in  the  first  volume, 
were  drawn  almost  exclusively  from  Cicero.  As  the  work 
progressed,  the  writer  indulged  more  frequently  in  digres- 
sions upon  matters  touching  men  and  scholarship,  his 
friends  and  enemies.  In  one  of  these,  speaking  of  letters 
in  the  year  1535,  he  shows  pleasure  at  the  dignified  posi- 
tion and  flourishing  state  of  literature,^  but  there  are 
further  sides  to  the  picture : 

"  Nothing  is  wanting  save  the  ancient  intellectual  freedom  and 
the  prospect  of  acquiring  distinction  by  the  cultivation  of  the  lib- 
eral arts.  What  the  learned  miss,  is  the  affection,  the  liberality 
...  of  the  powerful ;  the  patronage  of  a  Maecenas  is  needed.  .  .  . 
Further,  there  is  wanting  to  us  an  opportunity  for  the  display  of 
eloquence, —  a  Roman  senate,  a  republic  in  which  honour  and  due 
meed  of  praise  would  be  awarded  to  it.  .  .  .  Instead  of  these  in- 
ducements to  the  study  of  liberal  arts,  there  is  among  many  a  con- 
tempt for  literary  culture  .  .  .  literary  labour  has  to  be  pursued 
without  any  hope  ...  of  reward ;  the  life  of  the  student  is  passed 
without  honour;  the  contempt  of  the  multitude  has  to  be  endured; 
the  tyranny  and  insolence  of  the  powerful  have  to  be  borne;  and 
danger  to  life  itself  is  often  the  result  of  intellectual  pursuits."  "^ 

The  last,  at  all  events,  was  true ! 

Pages  might  be  filled  with  Dolet's  labors,  quarrels,  in- 
temperances and  misfortunes  through  the  remainder  of 
his  short  life.  He  became  hateful  to  the  authorities  at 
Paris,  and  after  various  imprisonments  and  releases,  and 
renewed  offenses,  he  was  condemned  to  be  burned  in  the 
Place  Maubert,  and  there  met  his  death  in  the  year  of 
grace  1546.  Curiously,  nothing  contributed  more  directly 
to  his  final  condemnation  than  the  words  rien  du  tout 
in   his    translation    of    a    pseudo-Platonic    dialogue,    the 

6  Given  by  Christie,  o.  c.  pp.  256-262.  One  recalls  Rabelais's  com- 
parisons in  the  letter  of  Gargantua. 

■^  Christie's  translation.  Dolet  proceeds  to  speak  of  the  war  of  the 
scholars  with  barbarism,  and  gives  at  length  their  names  in  Italy,  Ger- 
many, France  and  England. 


3o6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Axiochus.  The  questionable  passage  referred  to  the 
soul's  immortality.  Dolet's  judges  misquoted  him  as 
follows:  apres  la  mort  tu  ne  seras  plus  rien  dii  tout.  This 
was  the  basis  of  the  charge  of  blasphemy  in  that  Dolet 
had  falsely  made  Plato  deny  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
It  was  joined  with  charges  of  sedition  and  the  sale  of 
forbidden  books.  His  death  is  one  of  those  many  in- 
stances where  the  personality,  rather  than  the  specific  acts 
and  words  of  the  freethinker,  causes  his  temporal  ruin;  — 
an  instance  too  of  the  sad  unconquerable  heart  of  man: 

Si  au  besoing  le  monde  m'abandonne, 
Et  si  de  Dieu  la  volonte  n'ordonne 
Que  liberte  encores  on  me  donne 
Selon  mon  vueil; 

Dolts-je  en  mon  cueur  pour  cela  mener  duell, 
Et  de  regretz  faire  amas  et  recuell?  .  .  . 

Sus  done,  esprit,  laisses  la  chair  a  part, 
Et  devers  Dieu  qui  tout  bien  nous  depart 
Retlrez  vous  .  .  . 

Sus,  mon  esprit,  monstres  vous  de  tel  cueur ; 
Vostre  asseurance  au  besoing  solt  cogneue: 
Tout  gentil  cueur,  tout  constant  belliqueur, 
Jusque  a  la  mort  sa  force  a  maintenue!  ^ 

The  way  for  the  full  flowering  of  classical,  and  es- 
pecially Greek  studies,  for  France,  was  opened  by  the 
labors  of  the  family  of  Estiennes  (Stephens)  who  so 
grandly  united  the  attributes  of  scholars,  printers,  and 
publishers.  The  first  Henry  Estienne  printed  a  Latin 
abridgement  of  Aristotle's  Ethics,  with  an  introduction  by 
Lefevre  d'fitaples,  in  the  year  1502.  He  maintained  a 
scholarly  press  with  learned  proof-readers.  Of  his  three 
sons,  printers  and  scholars  all,  Robert,  born  in  1503, 
dying  at  Geneva  in  1559,  was  the  most  notable.  This 
talented  youth  profited  from  the  scholars  who  were  his 
father's  friends.  Like  his  father,  he  was  an  ardent  adhe- 
rent of  the  reformed  religion.  In  1523  he  printed  a 
Latin  New  Testament,  and  a  Greek  New  Testament  In 

8  A  poem  written  by  Dolet  in  the  Conciergerie  of  Paris  shortly  before 
his  death ;  given  at  length  by  Christie,  o.  c.  pp.  469-470. 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  307 

1546.  He  made  a  biblical  Concordance,  in  eleven  hundred 
pages  of  four  columns.  He  printed  a  number  of  the 
pagan  classics,  some  for  the  first  time,  and  in  the  course 
of  years  produced  his  prodigious  Latin  Thesaurus,  and 
collected  materials  for  a  similar  Treasury  of  Greek.  But 
his  scholarly  publication  of  sacred  as  well  as  profane  writ- 
ings brought  him  into  such  conflict  with  the  theological 
inhibitions  of  the  Sorbonne  that  he  left  Paris  for  Geneva, 
where  he  continued  his  labors.  At  his  death  in  1559,  he 
bequeathed  his  business  and  scholarly  undertakings  to  his 
eldest  son,  Henry,  his  chief  aid  and  consolation.  But 
this  testament  bound  Henry  to  Geneva,  since  it  provided 
that  his  heritage  should  lapse  if  he  changed  his  vocation, 
or  forsook  the  Church  of  Calvin,  a  provision  which  the 
Genevan  theocracy  construed  to  mean  that  if  he  removed 
from  Geneva,  he  should  leave  his  books  and  types  and 
presses  behind  him. 

This  great  intractable  son  was  to  find  the  censorship 
of  Geneva  as  galling  as  his  father  had  found  the  Sor- 
bonne. His  indefatigable  life  was  spent  as  a  printer 
and  productive  scholar  and  vigorous  polemic  writer,  and 
in  scarcely  intermittent  struggle  with  the  intolerable  the- 
ocracy of  Calvin's  city.  If  Calvin  died  in  1564,  revered 
even  by  Henri  Estienne,  his  post  mortem  grip  throttled 
liberal  thought  and  studies  in  Geneva.  The  recalcitrant 
Estienne,  save  for  occasional  incarceration,  might  go  and 
come,  but  not  even  the  pointed  suggestion  of  the  French 
King  (Henry  III)  or  the  influence  of  his  ambassador 
could  prevail  upon  the  City  Council  to  permit  the  removal 
of  Estienne's  presses  to  Paris,  where  also  life  and  liberty 
might  be  endangered.  Estienne,  of  course,  belonged  to 
the  reformed  rehgion.  Else  he  could  not  have  lived  in 
Geneva.  But  that  same  fact  imperilled  him  in  Paris,  in 
spite  of  the  favor  of  the  political  weakling  and  patron  of 
letters,  Henry  III.  He  was  bringing  out  his  great  The- 
saurus in  Geneva  when  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's 
occurred,  in  1572;  the  crime  was  due,  he  maintained,  to 
Catherine  of  Medici  and  her  Italian  conspirators.  After- 
wards, between  1584  and  1589  he  spent  much  time  in 


3o8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Paris  until  the  assassination  of  Henry  III  made  France 
too  dangerous  for  him.  Yet  his  dallyings  with  Catholic 
royalty  in  Paris  roused  the  suspicion  of  Geneva,  where 
he  was  otherwise  disliked  for  his  writings  and  rebellious 
temper.  He  was  prone  to  print  without  previous  sub- 
mission to  the  censor,  and  after  the  censor's  revision, 
was  none  too  ready  to  insert  or  omit  as  directed.  If 
his  attacks  or  indiscretions  were  mainly  levelled  against 
Romanists,  he  cared  not  where  he  put  his  heel;  and  licen- 
tious freedom  of  speech  made  him  seem  to  the  Geneva 
Consistory  like  another  Rabelais. 

His  French  writings  brought  him  the  most  trouble. 
Whatever  the  title  or  nominal  topic,  they  were  prone  to 
prove  polemic  or  satirical.  His  earliest  important  work, 
the  Apologie  pour  Herodote,  bears  an  innocent  title;  the 
author  professed  to  hope  that  the  ministers  of  the  Coun- 
cil would  not  trouble  themselves  to  read  his  "  little  book  " 
containing  a  defense  of  Herodotus.  But  they  did,  and 
found  too  many  skits  and  funny  stories  reflecting  on  re- 
spectable people,  and  too  great  licentiousness  of  speech. 
They  directed  the  excision  of  certain  parts,  and  ordered 
Estienne  to  get  back  the  copies  which  he  had  sent  to 
Lyons.  They  were  particular  people,  these  ministers  of 
the  Council,  having  no  taste  for  this  hodge-podge  of  an- 
ecdote and  satire;  seeing  no  value  in  this  fatras  of  argu- 
ments and  funny  tales. 

It  is  easier  for  us  to  catch  the  point  of  Estienne's 
writings  in  defense  of  his  beloved  French  tongue;  which 
both  defended  its  excellence,  and  urged  its  preservation 
from  Italianisms  and  like  foreign  affectations,  introduced 
by  the  Italianized  Court  of  France  and  the  writers  who 
ministered  to  court  tastes.  Estienne  sympathized  with 
the  Defense  et  Illustration  of  Du  Bellay  and  Ronsard, 
though  he  deprecated  their  paganism,  their  "  pindar- 
isme  "  and  lofty  dithyrambic  ways,  their  abuse  of  meta- 
phors, their  obscure  images  and  comparisons.  There  was 
no  condescension  in  his  vindication  of  the  French  tono-ue, 
as  there  was  with  those  who  would  defend  it  only  when 
rfassicized  and  Pindarized.     Estienne  maintained  the  pre- 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  309 

excellence  of  French  as  actually  written  and  spoken,  and 
not  merely  when  fashioned  by  a  school  of  writers.  This 
is  the  argument  of  his  Precellence  du  langage  Francais, 
in  which  is  shown  the  power  and  clarity  of  French,  its 
convenience,  its  peculiar  aptitude  for  diplomacy  and 
statecraft.  Perhaps  he  espoused  its  cause  more  academi- 
cally, after  the  prevailing  fancies  among  scholars,  in  his 
C  071  for  mite  du  francais  avec  le  grec.  There  he  main- 
tained that  the  Greek  was  the  most  perfect  of  all  lan- 
guages, and  that  the  French  resembled  it  most  closely, 
and  was  therefore  the  next  perfect.  Thus  he  set  French 
above  the  other  Romance  tongues  and  above  the  Latin, 
their  common  mother.  His  Greek  Thesaurus  showed  in 
fact  that  often  truer  equivalents  of  the  Greek  could  be 
found  in  French  words  than  in  Latin. ^ 

Such  were  not  unfruitful  topics  of  discussion  when  the 
European  languages  seemed  but  crudely  to  answer  to  the 
needs  of  science  and  the  higher  forms  of  literature.  Then 
a  scholar  might  well  set  himself  to  build  them  out  and 
perfect  them,  and  render  them  more  grammatically  exact, 
impeccable,  and,  as  it  were,  inevitable  in  their  expression 
of  the  period's  gradually  clarifying  thought. 

The  work  of  Henry  Estienne  in  classical  scholarship 
(which  has  not  yet  been  touched  on)  was  distinctive  of 
the  French  accomplishment  in  this  field  as  contrasted  with 
the  Italian.  Among  the  French  are  not  found  those 
jejune  exquisite  works  of  Latin  poetry  and  prose,  which 
the  Italian  humanists  took  pride  in.  The  efforts  of  French 
scholarship  was  rather  to  enlarge  and  solidify  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  and  literatures. 
Valla  may  be  compared  with  the  Frenchmen;  otherwise 
Italy  cannot  match  Bude's  De  Asse  or  his  Commentarii 
Linguae  Grecae,  or  the  Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinae  of 
Robert  Estienne,  who  was  so  strenuously  assembling 
materials  for  a  Greek  Thesaurus  too.  It  was  this  that 
Henri  Estienne  brought  to  completion,  and  published  In 
the  year  of  St.  Bartholomew,  in  five  huge  volumes,  mak- 

9  For  this  I  have  drawn  chiefly  on  Louis  Clement,  Henri  Estienne  et 

son  oeuvre  franqaise   (Paris  1899). 


310  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ing  it  the  crown  of  French  learning  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  expense  impoverished  this  redoubtable 
author  and  printer;  yet  did  not  prevent  his  increasing  his 
fame  and  poverty  by  the  publication  of  his  splendid 
edition  of  Plato  six  years  later. 

Even  this  Plato  was  but  one  great  classic  among  the 
many  printed  by  Henry  Estienne.  For  he  travelled  cease- 
lessly, searching  for  new  classical  matter,  rewarding  him- 
self and  the  world  with  such  discoveries  as  books  of 
Diodorus  Siculus  and  the  "  Anacreon  "  (what  we  call  the 
"  Anacreontea  ") ,  both  of  which  he  pubhshed  for  the  first 
time,  the  latter  to  become  a  chief  delight  with  Ronsard 
and  his  Pleiade.  He  is  said  to  have  published  fifty-eight 
Latin  and  seventy-four  Greek  authors,  among  them 
eighteen  first  editions. ^^  The  texts  of  many  of  these  pub- 
lications were  so  excellent  that  they  were  scarcely  im- 
proved upon  for  centuries.  The  man  was  great  not 
merely  in  the  tireless  ardor  of  his  scholarship,  but  in  the 
force  of  his  temperament  and  loyalty  to  the  France  which 
had  driven  him  and  his  father  forth,  but  to  which  he 
eagerly  returned  when  the  skies  of  persecution  lifted. 
Estienne  still  represents  the  scholarship  of  the  French 
Reform, —  of  the  circle  of  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  of 
Rabelais,  of  Bude  and  Lefevre  d'fitaples;  the  scholarship 
of  a  religious  reform  which  loved  classic  learning,  and 
had  not  submitted  to  the  effective  intolerance  of  Calvin- 
ism. This  union  of  true  scholarship  with  truth-seeking 
in  religion,  which  found  its  exponent  in  Erasmus,  still 
inspired  Henri  Estienne,  fallen  on  times  of  persecution 
and  religious  conflict,  when  the  mutual  hate  and  military 
exigencies  of  the  warring  faiths  left  little  sympathy  for 
the  tastes  and  labors  of  neutral  scholars. 

Without  pausing  with  such  admirable  scholars  as 
Turnebus  and  Lambinus,  who  were  royal  lecturers,  a 
reference  to  two  greater  men  of  the  following  genera- 
tion must  close  our  brief  and  truncated  consideration  of 
French  classical  studies  in  the  sixteenth  century.     Joseph 

10  Sandys,  Hist,  of  Classical  Scholarship,  II,  p.  175;  who  does  not  give 
his  authority. 


SOME  FRENCH  HUMANISTS  311 

Scallger  (1540-1609)  and  Casauban  (1559-1614)  never 
saw  each  other,  and  yet  became  fast  friends  through  corre- 
spondence and  mutual  respect.  The  former  was  the  son 
of  the  learned  and  truculent  Julius  Caesar  Scaliger,  him 
of  the  abusive  attack  upon  Erasmus  —  and  on  Cardanus 
too.  The  son,  familiar  with  the  classic  tongues  at  an 
early  age,  and  later  studying  with  the  best  scholars  at 
Paris,  developed  the  qualities  of  a  sound  textual  critic, 
and  produced  improved  editions  of  a  number  of  Latin 
authors.  From  textual  criticism  he  passed  on  to  pro- 
found comparative  historical  studies.  The  fruit  appeared 
in  his  great  work  upon  the  reform  of  antique  chronology, 
De  Emendatione  temporiim,  first  published  in  1583,  and 
twice  afterwards  with  improvements  and  additions  in 
his  lifetime.  This  work,  and  the  principles  of  historical 
criticism  exemplified  by  it,  became  the  basis  of  later  his- 
torical and  chronological  research.  Scaliger  was  of 
Italian  descent  and  belonged  to  the  reformed  religion. 
He  spent  his  last  fifteen  years  of  life  and  learning  at  the 
University  of  Leyden. 

Isaac  Casaubon  was  born  at  Geneva  of  Huguenot 
parents,  and  became  the  son-in-law  of  Henri  Estienne, 
who  nevertheless  would  not  let  him  use  his  library.  He 
was  called  to  Paris  in  1599  by  Henry  IV,  and  after  the 
King's  assassination  was  subjected  to  well-nigh  success- 
ful pressure  to  become  a  Catholic.  He  preferred,  how- 
ever, to  accept  an  invitation  to  England,  and  was  given 
a  prebendal  stall  in  Canterbury.  He  enjoyed  the  burden- 
some favor  of  King  James,  and  the  society  of  learned 
men;  but  he  was  unpopular  as  a  foreigner,  although  he 
had  been  naturalized.  Dying  at  the  age  of  fifty-five,  he 
was  burled  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Among  his  contem- 
poraries, his  scholarship  was  reputed  second  only  to  that 
of  Scaliger.  His  great  merit  as  an  editor  sprang  from 
his  broad  and  accurate  learning,  his  faculty  of  eliciting 
a  true  reading  from  a  comparison  of  manuscripts,  and 
the  abundance  of  his  illuminating  commentary.^^ 

11  Good  articles  in  the  Ency.  Brit,  by  Mark  Pattison  and  Christie  on 
these  men.     Pattison's  Life  of  Oasaubon  is  an  authority. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   CIRCLE  OF  MARGUERITE   OF   NAVARRE 

In  the  broadening  of  French  culture  and  the  opening 
of  the  French  mind  to  novel  influences,  a  certain  woman 
played  a  central  role,  through  her  station,  her  tempera- 
ment and  her  intellectual  gifts.  Marguerite  of  Angou- 
leme,  the  sister  of  King  Francis,  by  marriage  duchess  of 
Alengon  and  later  Queen  of  Navarre,  was  more  than  a 
patroness  of  the  best  spirits  of  the  time.  She  was  herself 
a  moving  agent  In  the  diffusion  of  thought  and  feeling, 
tempering  and  rendering  receptive  the  minds  of  those 
about  her,  of  King  Francis  himself,  who  respected  her, 
and  whom  she  loved  absorbingly.^  Much  of  the  period's 
spiritual  history  may  be  told  In  the  careers  of  the  men  she 
at  some  time  protected  by  her  power,  aided  with  her  gen- 
erosity, encouraged  with  her  sympathetic  understanding. 
Lefevre  d'Etaples  was  among  them,  Bude,  Clement  Ma- 
rot,  Rabelais,  Des  Perlers.  Calvin  was  to  prove  recal- 
citrant to  her  Influence  and  hostile  to  much  she  cared  for. 
She  was  herself  an  incessant  writer  of  letters  without 
number,  of  poems  which  run  on  forever,  of  tales  in  prose 
with  morallzlngs.  Her  thoughts  and  feelings  could  not 
keep  themselves  from  ink  and  paper,  either  while  she  was 
staying  at  one  of  her  residences,  or  while  travelling  In 
her  litter,  moving  with  her  little  court  from  place  to 
place,  as  was  her  wont.  Waiting  and  hoping  for  the 
coming  of  a  messenger  telling  of  her  royal  brother's  re- 
covery, she  writes : 

Quand  nul  ne  voy,  roeil  j'abandonne 
A  pleurer;  puis  sur  le  papier 
Un  peu  de  ma  douleur  j'ordonne. 

1  Marguerite  was  two  years  older  than  Francis,  and  died  two  years 
after  him.  Their  births  fell  in  1492  and  1494;  their  deaths  in  1547  and 
1549.     Her  grandson  became  Henry  IV. 

312 


MARGUERITE  OF  NAVARRE  313 

That  was  her  way  always.  Her  conversation  must 
have  been  more  Influential  than  her  writing,  at  least  than 
her  prolix  and  interminable  verse,  through  which  no 
enthusiasm  for  Marguerite  will  carry  the  reader. 

Marguerite's  breadth  of  intellectual  interest  was  as 
admirable  as  her  piety  toward  God  and  man;  and  the 
two  will  appear  commensurate  with  her  woman-faculty 
of  loving.  She  and  her  court  were  the  refuge  and  centre 
of  that  better  scholarship  and  fuller  humanism,  and 
clearer-seeing  piety,  which  characterized  advancing 
thought  in  France,  until  Calvin  so  trenchantly  severed 
goats  from  sheep.  Marguerite  and  her  friends,  according 
to  their  several  capacities,  cherished  the  full  gospel  of 
man  and  God:.the  charm  and  lustiness  of  life;  the  antique 
philosophy  and  letters;  and  the  truths  of  the  Christian 
religion,  more  nakedly  presented  than  the  dominant 
Church  approved.  These  people  cared  for  these  goods 
of  life  in  whole  or  in  part;  and  according  to  their  several 
tempers  fell  in  with  or  recoiled  from  the  usages  and  beliefs 
of  the  Church. 

Marguerite's  ideal  of  life  was  humanly  and  religiously 
inclusive.  She  would  unite  the  pleasure  and  excellence  of 
this  life  with  the  Christian  faith,  and  see  life  rise,  stage 
upon  stage,  as  it  were  from  the  flesh  to  the  spirit,  from 
man  to  God.  The  classics  doubtless  held  the  best  of 
human  learning.  To  them  let  there  be  added  the  book 
of  the  intricacy  and  sublimation  of  mortal  love  between 
man  and  woman.  And  as  the  last  stage  of  life's  com- 
pletion let  the  whole  world  rise  to  God,  human  ambitions 
merging  in  the  divine  purpose,  human  loves  melting  in  the 
love  of  God,  human  learning  bowing  down  before  the 
divine  ineffableness.  Marguerite  found  the  method  of 
this  union  in  that  loose  and  delectable  ''  Platonism  '* 
which  was  the  fashion  of  the  Medicean  circle  at  Florence. 
There  Ficino  had  been  chief  expounder  of  Plato  and 
Plotinus;  and  now,  more  especially  in  the  decade  from 
1540  to  1550,  his  translations,  his  commentaries,  and  his 
own  presentation  of  Platonic  Christian  thinking,  had 
become  known  to  Marguerite  and  her  circle,  and  through 


314  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

their  efforts  or  patronage  had  been  made  more  accessible 
in  republications  and  translations. 

At  an  earlier  period,  however,  Marguerite's  first  spirit- 
ual director,  Briconnet,  had  Introduced  her  to  the  opinions 
of  a  greater  than  Ficino,  to  wit,  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  whose 
thought  seemed  destined  to  act  as  a  universal  solvent  of 
case-hardened  opinions,  and  as  a  suggestion  and  stimulant 
of  larger  views.  As  a  churchman  he  had  been  liberal  and 
earnest,  and  his  opinions  might  incline  men  toward  re- 
ligious, as  well  as  philosophic,  reform.  Specific  traces  of 
his  influence  appear  in  Marguerite's  writings,  and  disclose 
the  general  effect  of  this  great  man  upon  her  Intellectual 
temper.^ 

It  was  in  those  years  from  1540  to  her  death  in  1549 
that  from  the  midst  of  her  royal  trials  and  disillusionment, 
and  finally  from  the  deep  grief  of  Francis's  death.  Mar- 
guerite turned  more  completely  to  literature,  philosophy, 
and  religion.  In  the  first  years  of  this  period  she  com- 
posed or  collected  most  of  the  tales  constituting  the  im- 
properly notorious  Heptameron.  They  are  what  they 
are,  less  amusing  than  those  of  Boccaccio,  and  with  much 
the  same  sort  of  subject,  though  purporting  to  be  true 
narratives  of  actual  people.  The  real  interest  for  one 
interested  in  Marguerite  lies  In  the  discussion  which 
follows  each  story,  and  serves  to  moralize  and  uplift 
the  tales,  and  prove  them  not  to  have  been  merely  the 
pastimes  of  lubricity.  These  discussions  relate  to  the 
v^arlous  phases  of  love,  its  pain  and  pleasure.  Its  good 
and  evil,  its  brutalities  and  sublimities.  Marguerite's 
thoughts,  given  to  the  speakers,  especially  to  Dagoucin 
and  Parlamente  who  seem  to  represent  her,  embrace 
Christianity,  the  new-vamped  Platonism,  and  the  pre- 
ciosities of  the  mediaeval  amour  coiirtois.  But  the 
courteous  love  was  affected  by  Castiglione's  Cortig'ianOy 

-  See  generally  Abel  Lefranc,  Le  Platotiisme  et  la  Utterature  en  France 
a  I'Epoque  de  la  Renaissance.  Rev.  d'histoire  litteraire  de  la  France  1896, 
p.  I  sqq. ;  ib.  Marguerite  de  Navarre  et  le  Platonisme  de  la  Renaissance, 
Bib.  de  I'Ecole  des  Chartres,  Vol.  58,  p.  259,  sqq.  Vol.  59,  p.  712,  sqq. 
These  essays  have  been  reprinted  in  one  volume:  Grands  Ecrivains  Fran- 
^ais  de  la  Renaissance   (Paris,  1914). 


MARGUERITE  OF  NAVARRE  315 

the  Platonism  was  that  of  Ficino,  and  the  Christianity 
that  of  the  dawning  Reform,  which  was  not  Calvinism. 
These  elements  melted  into  each  other.  As  a  result,  a 
scheme  of  human  love  rises  through  precietises  insistences 
and  draughts  of  Plato's  Symposium,  to  the  love  which, 
perfect  and  unshakable,  is  directed  toward  the  utter  good. 
On  its  way  thither  it  will  permit  itself  no  dishonour. 
Replies  Parlamente  in  the  nineteenth  tale : 

"  J'appelle  parfaicts  amans  ceulx  qui  cherchent  en  ce  qu'ilz 
aiment  quelque  perfection,  solt  beaulte,  bonte  ou  bonne  grace;  tous- 
jours  tendans  a  la  vertu,  et  qui  ont  le  cueur  si  hault  et  si  honneste 
qu'ilz  ne  veulent,  pour  mourir,  mettre  leur  fin  aux  choses  basses  que 
I'honneur  et  la  conscience  reprouvent;  car  Tame,  qui  n'est  creee  que 
pour  retourner  a  son  souverain  Bien,  ne  faict,  tant  qu'elle  est  de- 
dans ce  corps,  que  desirer  d'y  parvenir.  Mais  a  cause  que  les  sens 
par  lesquels  elle  en  peut  avoir  nouvelles  sont  obscurs  et  charnels  par 
le  peche  du  premier  pere,  ne  luy  peuvent  monstrer  que  les  choses 
visibles  plus  approchantes  de  la  perfection,  apres  quoi  I'ame  court, 
cuydans  (thinking)  trouver  en  une  beaulte  exterieure,  en  une  grace 
visible  et  aux  vertus  morales,  la  souveraine  beaulte,  grace  et  vertu. 
Mais  quand  elle  les  a  cherchez  et  experimentez  et  elle  n'y  trouve 
point  celuy  qu'elle  ayme,  elle  passe  outre.  .  .  ." 

Throughout  her  life,  Marguerite's  dominant  passion 
was  to  love,  and  think  and  talk  about  loving.  It  directed 
her  studies,  controlled  her  life,  and  moulded  her  religion 
to  an  emotional  mysticism,  In  which  this  utter  woman 
merged  all  her  thoughts  concerning  man  and  God  in 
love's  desire  and  realization.  Without  change  of  theme, 
we  pass  from  the  discussion  of  love  in  the  Heptameron 
to  the  philosophlc-reHgious  poem  entitled  Prisons,^  which 
she  wrote  at  the  same  time.  Its  first  part  has  to  do  with 
human  love,  the  first  Imprisoning  Illusion  of  the  author's 
heart.  When  through  force  of  will,  the  prisoner  has 
freed  himself  from  this  embarrlcaded  and  fantastic  tower, 
he  sets  forth  at  the  opening  of  the  second  part  to  observe 
the  world  In  all  Its  grandeur  and  variety,  the  cities,  the 
customs,  and  the  conduct  of  mankind.     He  Is  stung  by 

3  It  fills  pages  121  to  297  in  Abel  Lefranc's  Les  dernihes  Poesies  de 
Marguerite  de  Navarre  (Paris,  1896). 


3i6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

worldly  ambition,  is  drawn  toward  the  advantages  of  the 
Church,  then  to  the  Court.  But  an  old  man  induces  him 
to  betake  himself  to  study,  since  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
philosophers,  historians,  and  Scriptural  authors  will  re- 
move all  ills.  So  he  casts  off  ambition's  chains,  and  builds 
himself,  in  the  third  and  most  elaborate  part  of  the  poem, 
a  palace  of  knowledge;  walls  beyond  walls,  columns  on 
columns,  all  learning's  branches  form  this  encyclopaedic 
structure  of  books,  a  prison  as  it  is  still  to  prove:  poetry, 
law,  mathematics,  natural  history,  medicine,  history, 
rhetoric,  none  is  omitted,  nor  the  name  of  any  author; 
but  Plato,  St.  Paul  and  Dante  are  the  three  our  prisoner 
cares  for  most.  Terrified  by  the  pitfalls  of  error,  and 
the  danger  of  condemnation,  he  studies  theology  and 
Scripture,  with  watching,  fasting,  and  prayer.  From  the 
prison  of  the  letter,  he  is  delivered  by  the  divine  Word: 
"  I  am  that  I  am." 

Clearly  Marguerite  is  freed  from  her  last  prison 
through  faith  (the  central  principle  of  the  Reform) .  She 
flings  herself  on  Christ's  universal  redemptive  power;  in 
love  she  will  fly  to  the  All  in  AUness  of  God  and  revel 
in  the  antithesis  of  the  All  and  the  Nothing,  le  Tout  et 
le  Rien,  which  last  is  man.  Marguerite  loved  to  float 
amid  sublimations  and  inflations  of  the  thought  of  love. 
Well  might  Rabelais  address  her:  "  Esprit  abstraict,  ravy 
et  estatic."  She  had  proved  a  kind  protector  to  him,  and 
many  a  lesser  man.  And  she  herself  represented  the  in- 
tellectual expansion  of  her  land  and  time.  She  even  rep- 
resented that  incipient  and  temperate  religious  Reform, 
which  proceeded  as  much  from  the  basis  of  the  newly  en- 
larged learning,  and  the  accompanying  clearer  discrimina- 
tion between  fact  and  foolishness,  as  from  disgust  with 
the  corruptions  and  superstitions  of  the  Church.  Reli- 
gious reform,  carried  out  in  the  spirit  of  Marguerite, 
would  not  have  loosed  the  Furies  upon  France. 

The  poet,  Clement  Marot,  wrote  better  verse  than 
Marguerite,  whose  protege  he  was,  and  whose  views  of 
religious  reform  he  may  have  shared,  though  with  differ- 
ent emphasis.     If  he  had  convictions,  they  were  of  the 


MARGUERITE  OF  NAVARRE  317 

intellect;  while  Marguerite's  represented  the  mysticism 
or  metaphysics  of  religious  intuition.  The  structure  and 
substance  of  Marot's  verse  made  no  break  with  the  pre- 
vious, even  the  mediaeval,  achievements  of  the  French 
muse,  which  he  absorbed.  Still,  he  had  read  Boccaccio 
and  Petrarch,  as  well  as  Virgil,  Ovid  and  Catullus. 
Slightly  and  superficially  he  appears  touched  by  the  new 
humanism  of  Italy.  For  he  was  born  in  1496,  two  years 
after  Charles  VIII  invaded  Italy;  and  he  died  in  1544, 
three  years  earlier  than  Francis  I,  and  five  years  before 
Marguerite. 

At  Marguerite's  court,  at  the  court  of  Francis,  Marot 
was  of  his  entourage  and  livelihood,  a  court  poet  and  a 
cleverer  one  than  his  father  had  been  before  him.  His 
light  and  occasionally  brilliant  verse,  his  epigrams  es- 
pecially, had  profited  by  the  talk  and  badinage  of  a 
lively  and  superficially  polished  society.  This  did  not 
always  preclude  the  expression  of  delicate  and  sincere 
sentiment.*  Personally  he  was  gifted  with  a  persistent 
gaiety,  not  to  be  quenched  by  dangers  or  imprisonment, 
but  which  might  suffer  from  the  ennui  of  a  refuge  sought 
in  Ferrara  and  Geneva.  Those  places  were  as  congenial 
to  this  fugitive  libertine  of  the  spirit,  as  the  sanctuary  to 
the  sprightly  murderer  seeking  safety  at  the  altar. 

No  other  work  affected  Marot  as  much  as  the  Roman 
de  la  Rose^  which  he  edited  and  modernized  in  prison.^ 
Here  he  was  of  his  generation,  which  still  delighted  in 
that  famous  allegory  and  pungent  disquisition  upon  life. 
Only  gradually  he  developed  the  individuality  of  his  own 
gay  personality  and  environment.  Then  if  he  continued 
to  write  rondeaux,  he  wrote  also  ballads,  and  gave  his 
spirit  play  in  the  cleverest  of  epigrams  and  epistles  in 
verse.  He  also  translated  a  number  of  the  Psalms  at 
the  command  of  Francis,  strange  to  tell.  These  trans- 
lations, made  from  the  Vulgate,  are  rather  flat  and  nerve- 
less.     But  they  gained  vogue  at  the  court,  and  formed 

*  Cf.   A.  LeFranc.     Le  Roman   d'Amour   de   Clement   Marot.     {Grands 
£crivains  etc.). 

5  He  edited  Villon  also. 


3i8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  nucleus  of  the  Psalter  of  the  Reform.  Naturally, 
they  rendered  their  author  obnoxious  to  the  Sorbonne, 
and  Francis  was  Induced  to  forbid  their  further  dissem- 
ination and  dismiss  their  author. 

Marot  is  an  Important  personage  In  the  history  of 
French  poetry.  He  Is  an  effective  predecessor  not  merely 
of  Ronsard  but  of  Malherbe;  and  La  Fontaine  recognized 
him  as  his  master.®  But  this  man  had  no  temperamental 
affinity  with  the  men  of  the  Reform;  he  could  not  endure 
Calvin's  city,  nor  would  Geneva  harbor  him.  Some  of 
the  tenets  and  practices  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  jarred 
upon  the  clarity  of  his  Intellectual  perceptions,  while  the 
doctrines  of  the  Reform  appealed  to  his  mind.  Yet  he 
was  and  remained  essentially  a  court  poet  and  a  man  who 
followed  pleasure  after  the  fashion  of  court  society.  He 
was  not  shocked  by  the  moeurs  of  his  time  and  place, 
and  even  his  Intellectual  revolt  against  current  religious 
opinion  was  not  consistently  serious. 

*  Cf.  E.  Faguet,  Seizieme  Steele,  titudes  litteraires,  p.  73,  sqq. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FRANgOIS    RABELAIS 

The  people  spoken  of  in  the  last  few  chapters  open 
the  ways.  Their  tendencies  and  tastes,  studies  and  en- 
deavors, their  expression  of  themselves  in  their  pursuits 
and  writings,  naturally  precede  the  rounded  thinking,  the 
perfected  utterance,  the  splendid  and  final  modes  of  self- 
expression  achieved  by  younger  and  greater  men. 

In  a  sense  all  intellectual  labors  and  utterances  endure 
in  their  results;  for  nothing  that  once  is  done  and  uttered 
fails  of  some  effect.  But  the  modes  of  self-expression 
of  a  Rabelais,  a  Montaigne,  a  Calvin,  even  an  Amyot, 
not  to  speak  of  Ronsard  and  his  friends,  were  great  and 
finished  utterances.  These  achieved  self-expressions 
represent  climaxes,  finalities,  inasmuch  as  in  their  kind 
they  have  not  been  surpassed.  They  endure  not  merely 
as  influences  carried  on,  but  in  themselves  as  entities,  as 
perfected  exemplars,  always  impressive,  moving  some 
men  to  imitation,  others  to  avoidance;  but  in  themselves 
forever  notable. 

There  was  one  of  these  men  whose  nature  included 
many  surging  desires  of  his  people,  woven  in  the  warp  of 
genius.  He  has  been  a  much  commented  on  puzzle  ever 
since  he  lived  and  wrote  that  book  which  seems  to  hold 
all  life  from  the  cloaca  to  the  heavens.  Its  author  — 
only  one  of  his  own  words  will  fit  him  —  was  Gargantuan 
in  his  self-expression.  Never  did  a  mortal  pour  forth  him- 
self, his  huge,  ingens,  inforniis,  sprawling  self,  in  such 
torrential  superabundance  as  Rabelais.  He  is  the  most 
prodigious  expression  of  the  French  sixteenth  century, 
voicing  Its  life.  Its  scholarships.  Its  Ideals,  along  with  much 
that  the  Muse  of  Decency  would  leave  unsung.  Rabelais 
shouts  It  all  forth  In  tumultuous  delight.     None  will  dare 

319 


320  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

paint  him;  one  may  but  follow  his  life,  and  put  together 
bits  of  his  Gargantuan  self. 

The  intellectual  currents  of  the  times  flowed  into  the 
capacious  mind  of  Franqois  Rabelais,  illuminating  and  ex- 
panding a  nature  that  was  itself  an  abundant  spring  of 
genial  power  and  appetition.  He  had  a  Charybdean  maw 
for  life.  Delighting  in  all  knowledge,  he  ransacked  the 
stores  of  learning  available  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  He  also  delighted  in  every  act  and  function  of 
the  human  animal;  it  all  made  for  life.  Without  sensi- 
tiveness, he  wantoned  with  the  lewd  and  disgusting. 
Feeling  no  repugnance  toward  any  fact  of  human  ani- 
mality,  he  had  no  esthetic  preference  for  the  more  obvi- 
ously beautiful  and  ideal.  Glowing  with  enormous 
tolerance  and  benignity  for  the  natural  man,  his  satisfac- 
tion went  rollicking  through  the  vast  uncleaned  halls  of 
life.  Every  good  thing  was  from  God;  and  what  was 
better  than  human  nature?  Unthwarted  and  untram- 
melled, it  might  be  trusted  in  its  brave  carouse. 

Rabelais's  scorn  and  detestation  were  as  tremendous  as 
his  approval  and  applause.  Whatever  was  not  life  and 
knowledge,  but  a  sham  and  lie,  was  a  preposterous  abom- 
ination; and  likewise  whatever  broke  life's  currents  and 
thwarted  the  joyful  play  of  nature's  functions  was  hateful 
and  absurd  —  the  work  of  charlatans  and  hypocrites, 
of  prudes  and  pettifoggers.  Monkish  rules  for  diminish- 
ing joys  and  self-fulfilment  were  lewd  hypocrisy  usually, 
and,  when  observed,  quite  as  pernicious.  Rabelais  was  a 
supreme  satirist,  yet  with  little  of  the  bitterness  of  hate. 
The  usual  way  of  his  genial  nature  with  the  tricks  and 
follies  of  besotted  manikins  was  to  smother  them  in 
obscene  ridicule. 

His  works  have  called  forth  many  interpretations. 
They  and  their  author  are  touched  with  the  mystery  of 
the  man  endowed  with  an  exceeding  abundance  of  life; 
one  whose  work  cannot  be  tabulated  in  categories  of 
Influence,  or  explained  by  conventions  of  allegory.    These 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  321 

writings  are  alive,  prodigiously.  One  sees  in  them  the 
power  of  temperament, —  which  lies  in  the  spontaneities 
of  affinity  and  desire, —  impelling  the  author's  mental 
faculties  to  intellectual  creation,  supplying  symbols  and 
images.  Yet  this  fecund  temperament,  so  great  a  factor 
of  the  plastic  faculty  of  this  great  student  and  artist, 
was  not  headstrong.  It  was  amenable  to  worldly  pru- 
dence, while  the  topics  of  its  play  might  be  suggested 
by  the  interests  of  the  hour. 

Frangois  Rabelais  was  born  in  Touralne,  supposedly 
about  the  year  1494.^  His  father  was  a  lawyer.  When 
about  seventeen,  he  entered  the  Franciscan  convent  at 
Fontenay,  where  not  so  much  within  as  without  its  walls 
he  enjoyed  the  society  of  a  number  of  men  of  letters. 
The  youth  flung  himself  into  his  studies,  learning  Greek 
and  laying  the  foundations  of  the  encyclopaedic  sort  of 
knowledge  shown  In  his  writings.  Later  he  will  be  found 
among  the  correspondents  of  both  Bude  and  Erasmus. 
Before  long  he  had  himself  transferred  to  the  Benedictine 
Order,  and  became  the  secretary  of  his  opulent  and  noble 
patron  Geoffroy  d'Estlssac,  a  powerful  bishop  and  a  Bene- 
dictine prior.  He  found  other  noble  friends,  and  knew 
many  scholars,  as  he  moved  about  and  studied  and  ob- 
served. Monkhood  sat  lightly  on  this  eager  votary  of  life 
and  letters.  He  would  seem  at  some  time  to  have  studied 
medicine  in  Paris;  and  It  Is  known  that  he  finished  his 
medical  course  at  Montpelller  in  1530.  A  year  or  two 
afterwards,  he  settled  at  Lyons,  a  great  city,  situated 
at  a  goodly  distance  from  the  sinister  authority  of  the 
Sorbonne.  In  this  town  which  sheltered  Marot,  Dolet, 
Des  Periers,  and  Salnte-Marthe,  church  abuses  were 
criticized,  and  many  persons  favored  the  Reform.  Rab- 
elais was  appointed  physician  to  the  Hotel  DIeu,  and 
won  the  respect  of  the  learned  by  editing  sundry  works 
of  Galen,  the  Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates,  and  other  medi- 
cal and  even  legal  texts.     He  was  abreast  of  the  best 

1  I  am  following  Abel  Lefranc  in  the  Introduction  to  the  critical  edition 
of  Oeuvres  de  Franqois  Rabelais   (Paris,  Champion,  1912-). 


322  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

medical  knowledge  of  his  time,  but  appears  not  notably  to 
have  advanced  it.  Dissections  are  advised  in  Gargan- 
tua's  letter  to  his  son. 

Toward  the  close  of  1532  appeared  his  Pantagruely 
and  about  the  same  time  he  wrote  his  famous  letter  to 
Erasmus,  calling  him  his  father  and  mother  in  learning, 
"  the  tutelary  genius  of  letters,  the  Invincible  champion 
of  truth."  Two  years  later,  after  the  Pantagruel  had 
been  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne,  its  author  went  to 
Rome,  as  physician  in  the  suite  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  his  patrons,  Jean  du  Bellay,  who  was  soon  to  be  made 
Cardinal.  This  Roman  journey  over,  Rabelais  later  In 
the  same  year,  1534,  published  his  Gargantua;  which 
told  the  hfe  and  deeds  of  Pantagruel's  father.  Appar- 
ently this  book  also  was  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne, 
perhaps,  like  the  Pantagruely  for  Its  obscenity.  At  all 
events,  its  vituperative  epithets  and  abuse  of  monkdom 
made  it  hateful  to  those  theologians. 

Almost  at  the  moment  of  the  publication  of  the 
Gargantua^  the  posting  of  the  famous  placards  against 
the  Mass,  throughout  Paris  in  the  night  of  October 
seventeenth,  turned  the  King  from  tolerance  to  persecu- 
tion. Accord  between  the  liberal  minded  of  both  parties 
was  made  Impossible,  and  the  next  year  the  publication 
of  Calvin's  Christian  Institute  prepared  the  Issue  for  the 
eventual  arbitrament  of  the  sword.  Not  long  afterwards 
Rabelais  left  Lyons  quietly,  and  accompanied  Cardinal 
du  Bellay  to  Italy  and  Rome.  There  he  obtained  a  papal 
absolution  for  abandoning  the  Franciscans  for  the  Bene- 
dictines and  following  the  secular  profession  of  medicine. 
Through  the  next  years  he  led  a  life  of  study,  medical 
practice,  and  —  prudence.  He  expunged  the  most  hostile 
passages  of  the  Gargantua,  and  kept  within  the  protection 
of  his  powerful  friends,  among  whom  was  Queen  Mar- 
guerite of  Navarre.  It  was  probably  through  her  that  In 
1545  he  obtained  from  the  King  the  privilege  to  publish 
the  third  book  of  the  Heroic  Deeds  of  Pantagruel,  and 
correct  and  republish  the  two  previous  books.     The  third 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  323 

book,  in  Its  Rabelaisean  way,  had  mainly  to  do  with  the 
question  of  Panurge's  marriage.  Its  matter  was  not  un- 
related to  discussions  then  rife  among  the  ladles.  But 
the  sunny  weather  gave  way  before  some  months  of  In- 
tolerant reaction,  when  Rabelais  again  found  need  to 
retire  from  Paris,  and  Indeed  from  France.  Several  years 
later.  In  155 1,  the  Cardinal  du  Bellay  gave  him  the  cure 
of  St-Martln-de-Meudon,  which  he  held  for  two  years, 
discharging  Its  duties  through  a  vicar.  In  January  1552 
appeared  the  fourth  and  last  certainly  genuine  book  of 
the  Heroic  Deeds  and  Sayings  of  Pantagruel,  with  the 
author's  name  attached.  It  contained  enormous  satires 
on  the  papacy;  but  It  appeared  at  a  time  when  Rabelais 
had  many  protectors,  and  when  the  policy  of  Henry  II 
was  for  the  moment  anti-papal.  He  saved  himself  from 
the  reproach  of  Protestantism  by  calling  Calvin  the 
demoniac  impostor  of  Geneva.  Nevertheless  this  book 
was  soon  condemned  by  the  Sorbonne,  and  the  next  year 
the  author  died. 

Rabelals's  omnivorous  mind  sought  to  engulf  the  entire 
learning  and  knowledge  available  In  France  —  a  France 
Instructed  by  Italy  as  well  as  by  Erasmus,  a  France  which 
had  Its  own  Bude,  who  was  becoming  a  colossal  scholar 
when  in  1500  the  Adages  of  Erasmus  threw  the  light  of 
a  penetrating  Intelligence  over  the  classic  literature.  By 
the  time  of  Rabelals's  student  years,  the  work  of  such 
scholars  had  made  possible  the  study  of  Greek,  and 
Rabelais  gained  a  reading  and  writing  knowledge  of  that 
tongue.  Yet  In  his  youth  and  early  manhood,  men  still 
held  to  the  educational  matter  of  the  prior  time.  In 
France,  as  In  Italy,  the  mediaeval  past  was  reviled  rather 
than  actually  discarded;  and  the  Idea  of  the  value  of  en- 
cyclopaedic conventional  knowledge  gained  from  books, 
with  little  independent  thought  or  observation,  still  en- 
veloped the  mind  of  Rabelais.  But  he  satirizes,  somewhat 
imaginatively,  the  old  curriculum  and  Its  stupefying  effect 
upon  the  giant  prince  Gargantua,  whose  excellent  parts 
had  already  been  evinced  In  the  dirtiest  chapter  of  the 


324  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

book.  He  is  Instructed  by  a  great  doctor,'  Master  Tubal 
Holofernes,  who  spends  five  years  with  him  on  the  alpha- 
bet, till  he  can  recite  it  backwards;  and  keeps  him  for 
thirteen  years,  six  months,  and  two  w^eeks  more  on 
Donatus  and  other  mediaeval  school  books,  and  then  six- 
teen years  on  others,  when  the  old  fellow  dies.  Next, 
another  old  cougher  (tousseux)  takes  him  through  other 
antiquated  books,  including  the  Doctrinalc,  a  grammar 
which  not  all  the  scholars  of  that  time  disapproved.^  In 
this  way  Gargantua  was  made  stupider  and  stupider. 

A  neighboring  prince  comes  to  visit  King  Grangousier, 
having  In  his  train  a  sprightly  youth  Eudemon.  The 
latter  exhibits  his  courtly  accomplishments,  and  Gran- 
gousier is  enraged  over  the  futile  education  of  his  son. 
Gargantua  is  forthwith  turned  over  to  the  care  of  Pano- 
crates,  the  tutor  of  Eudemon,  and  sets  forth  In  their 
company  for  Paris. ^  There,  when  the  young  giant  has 
casually  taken  the  bells  of  Notre  Dame  to  string  around 
his  mare's  neck,  more  ridicule  is  cast  on  current  ways  of 
speech  and  education  In  the  person  of  the  preposterous 
pedant  who  comes  to  plead  for  their  return. 

This  picture  of  the  old  education  and  its  teachers,  and 
the  effect  on  the  pupil.  Is  loud  caricature  and  palpable  mis- 
representation. And  when  in  the  twenty-third  and  fourth 
chapters,  Rabelais  describes  the  new  education  of  Gar- 
gantua,—  after  a  draught  of  hellebore  has  purged  his 
mind  of  the  old  stuff, —  then  we  find  a  converse  Idealizing 
exaggeration,  which  befits  this  romance.  Gargantua  is 
Instructed  In  all  the  learning  of  the  time,  and  practiced 
In  the  martial  exercises  befitting  a  gentleman  —  the  in- 
fluence of  Castigllone's  Courtier  Is  apparent.  His  studies 
are  encyclopaedic,  and,  one  may  add,  administered  in 
ways  similar  to  those  prevailing  for  years  or  centuries  In 
the  colleges.  Yet  Rabelais  Introduces  novel  ideas.  Gar- 
gantua's  education  Is  carried  on  through  hours  of  repast, 

2  I,  Chapter  XIV,  Soph'iste,  i.  e.  scholastic,  in  the  more  prudent  editions 
of  i<;42;  docteur  en  theolofrie,  in  the  edition  of  1535. 

3  Cf   The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Vol.  II,  pp.   152-154. 

*  It  has  been  noted  that  the  names  of  the  representatives  of  the  new 
learning  are  Greek. 


FRANCOIS  RABELAIS  3^5 

repose,  and  recreation:  he  learns  the  stars  in  the  wakeful 
hours  of  night,  and  the  nature  and  qualities  of  the  food 
he  eats  by  hearing  the  ancient  authorities  read  aloud  at 
meals;  and  from  tricks  at  cards  he  gains  a  taste  for  math- 
ematics.^    In  rainy  weather 

"  they  did  recreate  themselves  in  bottling  up  [bailing]  of  hay,  in 
cleaving  and  sawing  of  wood,  and  in  threshing  sheaves  of  corn  at 
the  barn.  Then  they  studied  the  art  of  painting  or  carving.  .  .  . 
They  went  likewise  to  see  the  drawing  of  metals,  or  the  casting  of 
great  ordnance;  how  the  lapidaries  did  work;  as  also  the  gold- 
smiths and  cutters  of  precious  stones.  Nor  did  they  omit  to  visit 
the  alchemists,  money  coiners,  upholsterers,  weavers,  velvet-workers, 
watchmakers,  looking-glass  framers,  printers,  organists,  and  other 
such  kind  of  artificers,  and,  everywhere  giving  them  somewhat  to 
drink,  did  learn  and  consider  the  industry  and  invention  of  the 
trades.  They  went  also  to  hear  the  public  lectures  .  .  .  the 
pleading  of  gentle  lawyers,  and  sermons  of  evangelical  preachers."  ^ 

Rabelais  joins  physical  to  intellectual  training,  regu- 
lates the  hours  of  rising  and  repose,  and  advocates  a  diet 
suitable  to  periods  of  active  exercise,  or  again  to  the  in- 
door pursuits  of  rainy  days.''' 

In  the  next  generation,  and  the  next  book,  (written  two 
years  before  the  first,  however,)  Gargantua's  glorious  son, 
Pantagruel,  likewise  goes  to  Paris  for  his  education,  but 
without  the  dead  weight  of  a  youth  besotted  with  the 
pedantries  of  the  past,  as  Rabelais  would  deem  them. 
Pantagruel  examines  the  library  of  St.  Victor,  and  gives 
a  list  of  books,  filthy  and  ridiculous.  The  eighth  chap- 
ter contains  Gargantua's  letter  setting  before  his  son  the 
program  of  a  truly  liberal  education,  such  as.  Indeed,  he 
had  himself  received  in  part.  It  opens  with  thanks  to 
God  for  permitting  the  writer  to  see  his  bald  old  age  re- 
flourish  In  his  son's  youth.  But  it  would  be  small  joy  to 
see  his  body  continued  in  his  son,  if  the  young  prince's 
soul  were  degenerate.  Not  that  he  distrusts  him,  but 
would  encourage  him  to  advance  from  good  to  better. 

5  Cardanus  (see  post,  Chapter  XXXII)  had  this  idea. 
«I,  Chapter  XXIV,  Urquhart's  Translation   (1653). 
"^  Cf.  Lefranc,  Introduction,  pp.  XCIV,  sqq. 


326  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

"  And  that  which  I  now  write  unto  thee  is  not  so  much  that  thou 
should'st  live  in  this  virtuous  course,  as  that  thou  should'st  rejoice 
in  so  living  and  having  lived.  .  .  . 

**  But  although  my  deceased  father  of  happy  memory,  Grangou- 
sier,  had  bent  his  best  endeavors  to  make  me  profit  in  all  perfection 
and  political  knowledge,  and  my  labour  and  study  .  .  .  went  be- 
yond his  desire,  nevertheless,  as  thou  may'st  well  understand,  the 
time  then  was  not  so  proper  and  fit  for  learning  as  it  is  at  present, 
neither  had  I  plenty  of  such  good  masters  as  thou  hast  had.  For 
that  time  was  darksome,  and  savouring  of  the  infelicity  and  calam- 
ity of  the  Goths,  who  had  brought  to  destruction  all  good  litera- 
ture, which  in  my  age  hath  by  the  divine  goodness  been  restored 
unto  its  former  light  and  dignity,  and,  that  with  such  amendment 
and  increase  of  the  knowledge,  that  now  hardly  should  I  be  ad- 
mitted unto  the  first  form  of  the  little  grammar-schoolboys,  I  who 
in  my  youthful  days  was,  and  that  justly,  reputed  the  most  learned 
of  that  age.  .  .  . 

"  Now  all  the  Sciences  (Disciplines)  are  restored;  the  languages 
are  established,  Greek,  without  which  a  man  may  be  ashamed  to 
account  him  a  scholar,  Hebrew,  Chaldean  (i.  e.  Syriac  or  Aram.aic) , 
Latin ;  and  printed  books  are  now  in  use,  so  elegant  and  correct,  an 
invention  of  my  age  by  divine  inspiration,  as  artillery  is  a  counter- 
invention  through  the  suggestion  of  the  devil.  All  the  w^orld  is 
full  of  learned  men,  of  most  skilled  preceptors,  of  vast  libraries; 
and  it  appears  to  me  a  truth  that  neither  in  Plato's  time,  or  Cice- 
ro's, or  Papinian's,  was  there  ever  such  opportunity  for  studying  as 
we  see  to-day;  and  henceforth  it  behooves  none  to  show  himself  in 
society  w^ho  is  not  well  polished  in  the  shop  of  Minerva.  ...  So 
much  is  this  so,  that  I,  at  the  age  where  I  am,  have  been  con- 
strained to  learn  Greek,  which  I  had  not  despised  like  Cato,  but 
had  no  leisure  to  acquire  in  my  youth.  And  willingly  I  delight  in 
the  reading  of  Plutarch's  Morals,  the  admirable  Dialogues  of 
Plato,  the  Monuments  of  Pausanias,  and  the  Antiquities  of  Ath- 
enaeus,  in  waiting  on  the  hour  when  it  shall  please  God,  my  Crea- 
tor, to  call  and  command  me  to  depart  from  this  earth. 

"  Wherefore,  my  son,  I  admonish  thee  to  employ  thy  youth  to 
good  profit  both  in  studies  and  the  virtues.  Thou  art  at  Paris, 
where  the  laudable  examples  of  many  brave  men  may  stir  thy  mind, 
and  hast  likewise  thy  preceptor  Epistemon,  who  by  his  lively  and 
vocal  teaching  may  instruct  thee. 

"  I  intend  and  will  have  it  that  thou  learn  the  languages  per- 
fectly,—  first  of  all  the  Greek,  as  Quintilian  will  have  it,  secondly 
the  Latin,  and  then  the  Hebrew  for  the  Holy  Scripture's  sake,  and 
the  Chaldean  likewise ;  and  that  thou  form  thy  style  as  to  Greek  in 
imitation  of  Plato,  as  to  Latin,  upon  Cicero.  Let  there  be  no  his- 
tory which  thou  shalt  not  have  ready  in  thy  memory;  and  to  this 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  327 

end  books  of  Cosmography  will  help  thee  much.  Of  the  liberal 
arts  of  Geometry,  Arithmetic  and  Music,  I  gave  thee  some  taste 
when  thou  were  yet  little,  about  five  or  six  years  old.  Follow 
them  further,  and  of  Astronomy  learn  all  the  laws;  but  I  beg  you 
to  leave  out  the  divinations  of  Astrology  and  the  art  of  LuUius,  as 
vanities  and  abuses.  Of  the  Civil  Law,  I  would  have  thee  know 
the  texts  by  heart  and  compare  them  with  Philosophy. 

"  Now,  in  matter  of  the  knowledge  of  the  works  of  Nature,  I 
would  have  thee  apply  thyself  attentively;  so  that  there  be  neither 
sea,  river,  or  fountain,  of  which  thou  dost  not  know  the  fishes;  all 
the  birds  of  the  air,  all  the  several  kinds  of  trees  and  shrubs 
whether  in  forests  or  orchards;  all  the  herbs  of  the  earth,  all  the 
metals  hidden  in  the  belly  of  the  abyss,  the  precious  stones  of  the 
Orient  and  the  South :  let  nothing  be  unknown  to  thee. 

*'  Then  carefully  peruse  the  books  of  the  Greek,  Arabian  and 
Latin  physicians,  not  despising  the  Talmudists  and  Cabalists,  and 
by  frequent  anatomies  get  thee  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  other 
world  [the  Microcosm]  which  is  Man.  And  for  some  hours  of 
the  day  pay  your  respects  to  (commence  a  visiter)  the  Scriptures, 
first  the  New  Testament  in  Greek  and  the  Epistles  of  the  Apostles, 
and  next  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew. 

"  In  fine,  let  me  see  a  bottomless  pit  of  knowledge ;  for  when 
you  grow  up  and  are  a  man,  you  will  have  to  leave  this  tranquillity 
and  repose  of  study,  and  learn  arms  and  chivalry  in  order  to  de- 
fend my  house,  and  succour  our  friends  in  all  their  needs  against 
the  assaults  of  evil-doers.  And  shortly  I  would  have  you  try  how 
much  you  have  profitted,  which  you  cannot  do  better  than  by 
maintaining  publicly  Theses  and  Conclusiones  ^  in  every  branch  of 
knowledge  against  all  comers,  and  by  haunting  the  company  of 
learned  men. 

"  But,  since,  as  the  wise  Solomon  says,  wisdom  entereth  not  Into 
an  evil  mind,  and  knowledge  without  conscience  Is  but  the  ruin  of 
the  soul,  it  behooves  thee  to  serve,  love,  and  fear  God,  and  In  Him 
place  all  thy  thoughts  and  all  thy  hope;  and  by  Faith  built  up  of 
charity  be  so  linked  to  Him  as  never  to  be  overthrown  by  sin.  Sus- 
pect the  abuses  of  the  world.  Set  not  thy  heart  on  vanity,  for  this 
life  passes,  but  the  Word  of  God  endureth  forever.  Be  serviceable 
to  all  thy  neighbors,  and  love  them  as  thyself.  Respect  thy  pre- 
ceptors. Shun  the  company  of  people  thou  wouldst  not  resemble, 
and  receive  not  In  vain  the  graces  which  God  has  bestowed  upon 
thee."  ^ 

Roger  Bacon  In  the  thirteenth  century  had  no  thought 
of  forming  his   Greek  and  Latin   styles   on   Plato   and 

8  Compare  those  of  Pico  della  Mirandola,  post,  Chapter  XXX. 
^  Urquhart's  translation  with  emendations. 


328  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Cicero;  but  for  the  rest  he  advocated  and  tried  to  realize 
a  similar  program  of  study  and  enlightenment.  No  man 
in  the  sixteenth  century  felt  more  deeply  than  he  the  need 
of  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  original  tongues.  And 
his  Ideal  of  knowledge,  for  every  scholar  if  one  will,  was 
encyclopaedic.  He  had  as  strong  a  hate  as  Rabelais  for 
scholastic  obfuscations,  and  was  quite  as  eager  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  physical  sciences.  But  living  when  the 
interests  of  theology  were  absorbing,  he  found  scant  sym- 
pathy or  collaboration.  Only  a  lack  of  literary  feeling 
for  the  classics,  a  lack  of  this  sort  of  humanism,  marked 
the  difference  between  this  thirteenth  century  Franciscan 
and  sixteenth  century  scholars,  like  Rabelais. 

From  these  general  approvals  and  disapprovals  shared 
by  Rabelais  with  others  of  his  time,  one  turns  to  the  con- 
victions more  peculiar  to  him,  which  he  expressed  with 
power  and  temperamental  vividness.  One  may  note  these 
factors  of  his  individuality,  although  one  cannot  analyze 
convincingly  this  abounding  imaginative  and  rational 
genius,  this  insatiate  man  who  would  reject  no  positive 
element  of  life. 

Indeed  this  would  seem  to  be  Rabelals's  broadest  prin- 
ciple: —  that  Is  to  say,  the  nature  of  man  Is  good;  his  de- 
sires, his  concupiscent  lusts,  his  natural  actions,  are  good, 
and  when  unthwarted,  make  for  life  and  joy.  It  is  all 
from  God.  He  recognized  this  with  week-day  devout- 
ness.  But  he  was  utterly  untheological;  and  had  no  faith 
In  any  dogma  of  original  sin.  For  him  no  subtle  poison 
pervaded  natural  desire,  making  it  at  best  venially  sinful. 
He  worried  not  at  all  about  sin.  But  he  voided  the  ex- 
crements of  his  wrath  upon  every  drivelling  sham  which 
extended  Its  obscene  tentacles  across  the  path  of  life. 
Yes,  yes,  says  he  to  the  Imaginary  reader  who  might  re- 
proach him  for  the  fooleries  he  writes :  —  you  are  as  much 
to  blame  for  reading  them;  but  both  of  us  are  better  de- 
serving of  pardon  than  that 

"  rabble  of  squint-minded  fellows  dissembling  and  counterfeit 
paints,  demure  lookers,  hypocrites,  pretended  zealots,  tough  friars, 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  329 

buskin-monks,  and  other  such  sects  of  men,  who  disguise  themselves 
like  masquers  to  deceive  the  world.  .  .  .  Fly  from  these  men, 
abhor  and  hate  them  as  much  as  I  do,  and  upon  my  faith  you  will 
find  yourself  the  better  for  it.  And  if  you  desire  to  be  good  Pan- 
tagruelists,  that  is  to  say,  to  live  in  peace,  joy,  health,  making  your- 
selves always  rnerry,  never  trust  those  men  that  always  peep  out 
through  a  little  hole." 

The  heart  and  soul  of  Rabelais  are  In  this  last  passage 
of  the  second  book,  given  here  mainly  In  the  translation, 
with  which  Cavalier  Urquhart  whiled  away  his  captivity 
In  the  Tower  of  London.  Cast  out  this  starveling  mum- 
mery, ye  who  would  be  followers  of  the  good  Pantagruel, 
and  live  in  peace,  joy,  health,  making  ahvays  good  cheer. 
And  this  Pantagruelism  Is  tolerant,  kindly,  and  forgiving. 
For  In  all  Pantagruellsts  there  is  that  "  by  virtue  whereof 
they  will  bear  with  anything  that  floweth  from  a  good, 
free,  and  loyal  heart."  ^^  There  should  be  also  the  salt  of 
Stoicism,  as  Rabelais  puts  It  later  In  life,  when  he  speaks 
of  Pantagruelism  as  "  a  certain  gaiety  of  spirit  cured  In 
contempt  of  chance  and  fortune."  ^^  With  prodigious 
humor,  wit,  poetic  Imagination,  Rabelais  exemplified.  Il- 
luminated, or  befouled  these  principles,  making  them  Into 
an  epic  of  royal  giants,  giants  In  the  joy  of  mind  and  joy 
of  lusty  living,  all  one  and  whole  and  free  from  care  and 
rancor.  To  this  end  he  devotes  his  learning,  his  power 
of  making  borrowed  stories  live  In  a  new  pertinency;  to 
this  end  he  devotes  his  flood  of  words,  and  the  Images, 
the  metaphors  and  similes.  In  which  he  thinks,  and  on 
which  his  theme  moves  as  on  pinions.  No  Ideal  beauty 
monopolizes  any  throne.  Why  not  rather  enthrone  the 
belly  —  Gaster  —  whose  voraciousness  Is  the  moving  en- 
ergy of  life?  Gaster  Is  the  master  of  arts,  crafts  and 
inventions,  the  mover  of  the  progress  of  the  world. 
Gaster  Indeed  may  symbolize  this  Inspiring  need  and  mov- 
ing power  as  well  as  any  other  energy  In  that  life  whose 
first  cry  Is  Gargantua's:  a  boire!  a  boire !  a  boire!  ^- 

A  gorgeous  illustration  of  this  benevolent  love  of  joy- 

10  Bk.  Ill  Prologue,  cf.  an  example  of  this  tolerance  Bk.  Ill,  Chapter  II. 

11  Bk.  IV,  Author's  prologue. 

12  Bk.  I,  Chapter  VJ.     Cf.  Bk.  IV,  Ch.  LVII  and  XLI, 


330  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ous  life,  and  contempt  for  whatever  pinches  or  addles  It, 
Is  the  abbey  of  Theleme,  with  Its  name  taken  from  the 
Greek  OeXrjfia,  meaning  will  or  wish.  The  lusty  monk 
who  did  such  feats  In  the  war  against  the  tyrant  PIcrochole 
Is  to  be  rewarded  by  Gargantua.  Sundry  fat  abbeys  are 
offered  him;  he  will  have  none  of  them,  but  will  build  one 
after  his  own  mind.  Gargantua  bestows  on  him  the  coun- 
try of  Theleme  by  the  river  Loire;  and  the  two  kindred 
spirits  found  the  new  order  upon  the  full  contrary  of  all 
established  rules  of  monkhood.  There  shall  be  no  wall 
about  the  abbey,  seeing  that  all  others  are  walled  about; 
nor  shall  there  be  any  clock  or  dial,  since  what  dotage  Is  It 
for  anyone  to  direct  his  courses  by  the  sound  of  a  bell,  and 
not  rather  by  his  own  discretion;  beautiful  women  shall 
not  be  kept  out,  but  only  the  ugly,  nor  shall  any  vow  bind 
monk  or  nun  to  stay,  when  they  choose  to  depart.  Inas- 
much as  other  Orders  take  the  vows  of  chastity,  poverty, 
and  obedience.  It  was  ordained  that  those  who  would 
should  marry,  and  every  one  should  be  rich  and  live  at 
liberty. 

The  abbey  was  built  In  grandeur  and  magnificence,  with 
alabaster  fountains  and  arcaded  luxuries;  with  libraries  in 
every  tongue.  Over  Its  great  gates  were  emblazoned 
verses  forbidding  bigots,  hypocrites,  dissemblers,  attor- 
neys, barristers,  usurers,  thieves,  liars,  drunkards,  canni- 
bals, to  enter;  but  Inviting  all  noble  blades  and  brisk  and 
handsome  people,  faithful  expounders  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  lovely  ladles,  stately,  proper,  fair,  and  mirthful.  The 
ladies  had  bowers  and  courts  where  they  might  bathe, 
shoot  at  the  butts,  and  ride  and  fly  their  falcons,  witness 
the  tilting,  and  In  fine,  have  every  recreation  suited  to 
ladles  of  high  birth.  They  slept  in  embroidered  beds, 
their  chambers  hung  with  tapestry;  perfumers  waited  on 
them  in  the  mornings,  and  gave  to  each  a  casket  of  choice 
odours.  They  were  apparelled  to  suit  their  pleasure, 
stockings  of  scarlet  or  crimson,  slippers  of  red  or  violet, 
smocks  of  any  color,  coats  of  satin,  damask,  velvet,  gowns 
of  cloth  of  gold  or  satin:  raiment  to  suit  the  seasons. 
The  men  were  dressed  as  gallantly,  and  every  morning 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  33 1 

received  word  of  what  the  ladies  were  to  wear,  so  that 
they  might  array  themselves  in  harmony. 

"  Their  life  was  spent  not  in  laws,  statutes  or  rules,  but  at  their 
ov^n  free  will  and  pleasure.  They  rose  from  bed  when  they 
thought  good,  drank,  ate,  worked,  slept,  when  the  desire  came  to 
them.  None  did  waken  them,  none  constrained  them  either  to 
drink  or  eat,  nor  to  do  any  other  thing:  for  so  had  Gargantua 
established  it.  The  Rule  of  their  order  had  but  one  clause:  Do 
what  thou  wilt.  Because  persons  that  are  free,  well  born,  well 
educated,  and  accustomed  to  good  company,  have  by  nature  an  in- 
stinct and  spur  which  prompts  them  to  virtuous  acts  and  withdraws 
them  from  vice.  This  they  call  honor.  But  the  same  people 
when  they  are  oppressed  and  bound  by  base  subjection  and  con- 
straint, turn  aside  from  the  noble  affections  by  which  they  were 
freely  inclined  to  virtue,  to  shake  off  and  break  this  bond  of  servi- 
tude. For  we  always  attempt  forbidden  things,  and  covet  what  is 
denied  us." 

By  this  liberty,  continues  Rabelais,  they  entered  into 
laudable  emulation  to  do  all  of  them  what  they  saw  did 
please  one.  So  if  one  said  let  us  drink,  they  would  all 
drink,  or  let  us  go  a-walking,  they  would  all  go,  or  a- 
hunting  or  a-hawking.  So  nobly  were  they  taught  that 
no  man  or  woman  of  them  but  could  read,  write,  sing,  play 
upon  musical  instruments,  speak  five  or  six  languages  and 
compose  verse  and  prose  in  them.  Never  were  seen 
knights  so  brave  and  noble,  or  better  skilled  in  fight  on 
foot  or  horse;  never  ladies  so  proper  and  charming,  or 
more  apt  in  needle  work  and  every  act  becoming  a  woman. 
And  when  It  came  to  any  man  to  leave  the  abbey,  he  took 
with  him  his  ladylove  and  married  her,  and  lived  together 
in  devoted  love  and  happiness  all  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

Rabelals's  broad  approvals  and  the  butts  of  his  satire 
and  laughter  bore  not  only  on  religion,  but  on  the  greedy 
or  pettifogging  affairs  of  men.  Nothing  could  be  funnier 
than  his  satire  upon  the  windy  irrelevancy  of  pleadings 
and  arguments  in  court.^^  Yet  what  a  creature  his  humor 
and  toleration  could  build  out  of  knavery,  the  character 
of  Panurge  will  testify,  as  wonderful  a  creation  as  Fal- 
staff.     The  broad  happy  acceptance  of  life  includes  the 

13  Bk.  II,  Chapter  X-XIII. 


332  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

cheerful  scamp,  let  him  but  be  clever  and  funny  enough: 
and  of  course  Rabelais's  whole  setting  forth  of  life  has 
always  the  permitted  exaggerations  of  comedy  and  satire. 
But  the  comic  does  not  exclude  feeling  which  sometimes 
is  as  profound  as  it  is  large  and  beautiful.  A  Lilliputian 
may  weep  over  a  sparrow's  death;  but  Pantagruel  tells 
the  tale  of  the  strange  announcement  of  the  death  of  Pan, 
connects  it  w^ith  the  tragedy  on  Calvary,  and  remains 
silent  in  contemplation.  "  A  little  while  after  we  saw 
tears  flowing  from  his  eyes  as  big  as  ostrich  eggs."  Or 
again,  one  may  find  a  seriousness  in  Rabelais's  very  comic 
picture  of  the  underworld,  where  Emperors  and  Kings 
and  Popes  suffer  ridiculous  degradations,  while  philoso- 
phers foot  it  bravely.  His  own  Kings,  Grangousier  and 
Gargantua,  are  humane  in  their  statecraft,  and  long-suffer- 
ing and  forgiving,  even  when  war  is  forced  on  them. 

The  religious  or  theological  satire  in  the  works  of  Rab- 
elais raises  the  question  whether  he  belonged  to  the  Re- 
form. We  naturally  tend  to  classify  the  incipiency  of 
great  movements  by  the  clearer  determinations  of  their 
maturity.  Their  vague  beginnings  may  have  carried  little 
consciousness  of  the  later  purpose  and  resolve.  Rabelais 
was  no  member  of  the  Reform  as  its  purport  was  stated  by 
Calvin.  The  two  men  were  repugnant  and  hostile.  But 
Rabelais  loved  fact  and  verity;  and  as  a  penetrating 
scholar,  he  sought  the  source  and  despised  the  gloss. 
This  was  his  way  in  studying  the  Civil  Law,  in  which  he 
v/as  no  tyro.  He  would  cast  aside  the  Commentators, 
and  understand  the  Pandects  for  himself.  So  in  religion, 
he  was  evangelical,  looking  back  to  the  sure  utterances  of 
the  Gospels  and  the  contemporary  testimony  of  the  Epis- 
tles. His  mind  rejected  the  accretions  of  ecclesiasticism, 
which  had  no  warrant  in  Christ's  gospel.  Greed  and 
corruption  were  the  working  forces  of  this  sacerdotal  elab- 
oration. Moreover,  sacerdotal  rules  and  prohibitions 
checked  the  flood  and  joyful  play  of  life.  Rabelais  was 
a  man  of  the  sixteenth  century,  his  pulses  throbbing  with 
its  living  currents  and  with  the  red  blood  of  his  own  lusty 
nature.     Continence,   abstinence,   any  lessening  of  life's 


FRANgOIS  RABELAIS  333 

play,  were  In  themselves  as  abominable  as  the  false  pre- 
rogatives and  monstrous  hypocrisy,  which  they  did  not 
even  cloak.  In  accordance  both  with  his  nature  and  his 
rational  principles,  he  hated  the  jealous,  empty  theologi- 
ans of  the  Sorbonne,  the  monks  with  their  rules  and  dirty 
lies,  and  the  greed  of  Rome  which  fleeced  the  nations  ab- 
surdly. All  these  detestable  things  were  the  monstrous 
offspring  of  Antiphys'is,  malignantly  brought  forth  to  spite 
the  Beauty  and  Harmony,  which  Physis,  that  is  to  say, 
Nature,  gave  birth  to  In  the  beginning. 

From  such  matter  of  Rabelaisean  contempt  and  disap- 
proval the  Rabelaisean  wit  and  phantasy  produced  the 
mordant,  yet  side-splitting,  chapters  of  the  fourth  book. 
After  Pantagruel  and  his  ship's  company  have  passed  by 
the  Island  of  Shrovetide  and  have  had  their  adventures  In 
the  land  of  Silly  Sausages,  they  come  to  the  Island  of  the 
Papefigties,  whose  people  have  been  set  upon  and  enslaved 
for  insulting  an  Image  of  the  Pope  adored  by  the  Pape- 
maniacs.  Sailing  on,  the  next  day  they  reach  the  blessed 
Islands  of  these  same  Maniacal  Papists,  where  they  are 
treated  with  hospitality  and  veneration  because  one  of 
their  company,  even  Panurge,  once  had  seen  God,  that  Is 
to  say,  the  God  on  earth,  to  wit,  the  Pope.  One  reads 
and  learns  what,  save  by  him,  unspeakable  ridicule  Rabe- 
lais could  heap  on  papist  observances  and  superstitions, 
and  on  their  foundation,  to  wit.  Papal  Decretals,  Clem- 
entlnae  Extravagantes,  and  the  rest,  and  the  miracles 
wrought  even  by  their  parchment,  perhaps  the  crownlno: 
miracle  of  all  being  their  subtile  power  of  drawing^  gold 
to  Rome.  And  then,  as  the  good  company  sail  on,  frozen 
words,  wafted  from  the  cries  of  men  battling  In  hyper- 
borean regions,  are  heard  as  they  melt  In  warmer  air. 
Once  more  a  landing  Is  made  on  the  Island  of  Gaster,  the 
great  belly-master  of  all  arts  and  sciences.  Then  the  shin 
sails  on,  Pantagruel  sleeping  softly  on  his  quarter  deck 
with  a  Greek  Heliodorus  in  his  hand. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

POETIC    ENNOBLEMENT   OF    FRENCH    THROUGH 
IMITATION  OF  THE  CLASSICS 

In  the  year  1549  appeared  La  Defense  et  Illustration 
de  la  Langue  Francaise,  a  little  book  whose  sails  were 
filled  with  young  enthusiasms.  The  author,  Joachim  du 
Bellay,  "  gentilhomme  angevin,"  a  youth  of  twenty-four, 
was  aided  and  inspired  by  his  friend  Pierre  de  Ronsard, 
"  gentilhomme  vendomois,"  one  year  his  senior.  The  two 
were  destined  to  be  the  most  memorable  of  the  group  of 
poets  who  dubbed  themselves  "  La  Pleiade."  The  name 
of  Ronsard  became  as  that  of  a  prince  in  literature. 

The  Defense  was  a  manifesto  of  a  new  school  of  French 
poetry;  a  precursory  and  necessarily  rash  attempt  to  set 
forth  principles,  if  not  a  system.  It  contained  inconsist- 
encies, confusions,  fallacies.  Perhaps  no  critic  has  suc- 
ceeded altogether  in  stating  its  doctrines  for  us.  It  was 
at  all  events  a  clarion  pronunciamento  in  favor  of  French 
as  the  literary  vehicle  for  Frenchmen.  Rejecting  the  old 
forms  of  French  verse,  it  defended  the  capacities  of  the 
mother  tongue  for  the  most  glorious  kinds  of  poetry. 
But  the  full  resources  of  the  mother  tongue  should  be 
utilized,  and  above  all,  there  was  need  to  ennoble  its  liter- 
ary forms  through  that  veritable  imitation  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  Classics  which  lay  in  appropriating  the  truth 
and  nobility  presented  in  them.^ 

The  author,  or  authors,  of  the  Defense  seem  to  start 
from  the  idea  that  the  weakness  or  excellence  of  languages 
depends  on  the  arbitrary  will  of  men.  If  some,  having 
been  "  plus  curieusement  reglees,"  becomiC  richer  than 
others,  this  is  not  due  to  any  inherent  felicity,  but  solely 

1  The  modern,  and  especially  the  English,  use  of  the  word  "  Illustration  " 
diverts  attention  from  its  meaning  in  the  title  to  the  Defense  where  it 
means  magnifying  or  rendering  illustrious.  2 

334  ....  .   ..  .. 


LA  PLEIADE  335 

to  the  "  artifice  et  industrie  des  hommes."  Hence  the 
folly  of  those  scholars  who  think  French  unsuited  to  let- 
ters and  erudition.  If  our  own  tongue  is  less  copious  than 
Greek,  the  fault  lies  not  in  it,  but  in  the  rudeness  of  our 
ancestors  who  chose  to  leave  to  posterity  examples,  rather 
than  precepts,  of  excellence.     But  — 

''  Je  n'estime  pourtant  nostre  vulgaire,  tel  qu'il  est  maintenant,  es- 
tre  si  vil  et  abject,  comme  le  font  ces  ambitieux  admirateurs  des 
langues  Greque  et  Latine.  .  .  .  Et  qui  voudra  de  bien  pres  y 
regarder,  trouvera  que  nostre  langue  Francofse  n'est  si  pauvre 
qu'elle  ne  puysse  rendre  fidelement  ce  qu'elle  emprunte  des  autres ; 
si  infertile,  qu'elle  ne  puysse  produyre  de  soy  quelque  fruict  de 
bonne  invention,  au  moyen  de  I'industrie  et  diligence  des  cultiveurs 
d'icelle.  .  .  ." 

Translations  will  not  suffice  to  raise  our  language. 
The  Romans  did  not  omit  this  labor:  but  chiefly  they  en- 
riched their  tongue  "  immitant  les  meilleurs  aucteurs 
Grecz,  se  transformant  en  eux,  les  devorant,  et  apres  les 
avoir  bien  digerez,  les  convertissant  en  sang  et  nourri- 
ture."  And  each  selected  the  Greek  author  that  best 
suited  his  own  talents  and  the  purpose  which  he  had  in 
view. 

The  chief  point  of  art  lies  in  this  "  imitation."  Let 
him  who  would  imitate  understand  that  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  copy  (suivre)  the  virtues  of  a  good  author,  and  pene- 
trate to  his  hidden  qualities.  It  is  profitless  to  imitate  the 
old  French  authors;  for  that  is  but  to  present  our  lan- 
guage with  what  it  has  already.  If  Virgil  and  Cicero  had 
been  content  to  do  this,  Latin  literature  might  have 
stopped  with  Ennius  and  Lucretius. 

Yet  translations  are  serviceable,  especially  of  the 
science  of  the  Greeks,  so  that  all  may  study  it,  and  not 
have  to  spend  their  time  on  the  language.  Indeed,  that 
our  men  to-day  are  of  less  worth  in  science  than  the  an- 
cients, is  chiefly  owing  to  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  Latin. 
"  For  if  the  time  which  we  consume  in  learning  the  said 
languages,  had  been  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  Sciences, 
surely  Nature  is  not  become  so  sterile  as  not  to  have 


336  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

brought  forth  Platos  and  Aristotles  in  our  own  time." 
Of  course  Du  Bellay  had  no  thought  of  applying  this  rather 
two-edged  argument  to  those  who  sought  to  excel  in 
poetry  and  eloquence.  He  did  not  mean  to  depreciate 
the  study  of  the  ancient  tongues;  on  the  contrary,  he  main- 
tains that  no  one  can  write  well  in  French  without  a 
knowledge  of  Latin  at  least.  But  he  pours  ridicule  on 
those  "  reblanchisseurs  de  murailles  "  who  think  to  imitate 
the  ancients  in  their  own  tongues,  by  copying  their  phrases, 
making  poems  on  half  lines  of  Virgil,  and  mouthing  in 
Cicero's  sentences.  As  if  through  such  assembling  one 
could  rebuild  an  ancient  edifice ! 

As  for  our  old  French  poetry,  continues  Du  Bellay  in 
the  second  part  of  the  Defense,  William  de  Loris  and 
Jean  de  Meun  are  worth  reading  "  pour  y  voir  quasi 
comme  une  premiere  imaige  de  la  langue  Francoise,  ven- 
erable pour  son  antiquite."  Coming  nearer  our  own 
times,  Jean  le  Maire  de  Beiges  seems  the  first  to  have 
illustre  our  tongue,  enriching  it  with  poetic  words  and 
forms  still  in  use.  As  for  our  very  best  poets  after  him, 
I  would  say  "  qu'ilz  ont  bien  ecrit,  qu'ilz  ont  illustre  notre 
Langue,  que  la  France  leur  est  obligee;  mais  aussi  diroy 
je  bien  qu'on  pourroit  trouver  en  nostre  Langue  .  .  .  une 
forme  de  Poesie  beaucoup  plus  exquise,  laquele  il  faudroit 
chercher  en  ces  vieux  Grecz  et  Latins,  non  point  es  auc- 
teurs  Francoise." 

To  be  sure,  natural  aptitude  without  learning  can  do 
more  than  "  Doctrine  sans  le  naturel."  But  learning  is 
needed  for  the  "  amplification  "  of  our  tongue,  which  I  am 
discussing,  "  and  1  advise  those  who  aspire  to  this  glory, 
to  imitate  the  good  authors,  Greek  and  Roman,  and  in- 
deed Italian,  Spanish  and  others."  Abandon  the  old 
French  forms — "  Rondeaux,  Ballades,  Vyrelaiz,  Chantz 
Royaulx,  Chansons,  et  autres  telles  episseries,  qui  cor- 
rumpent  le  goust  de  nostre  Langue,  et  ne  servent  si  non  a 
porter  temoinguaige  de  notre  ignorance."  Rather,  imi- 
tate the  epigrams  of  a  Martial;  the  "  pitoyables  Elegies," 
of  Ovid,  or  a  Tibullus  or  Propertius,  throwing  in  some 
of  those  ancient  fables,  which  are  no  small  ornament  of 


LA  PLEIADE  337 

poetry; — "  chante  moy  ces  Odes,  incognues  encor*  de  la 
Muse  Francoyse.  .  .  .  Sonne  moy  ces  beaux  Sonnetz,  non 
molns  docte  que  plalsante  invention  Italienne."  Adopt 
also  into  the  "  famille  Francoyse  "  those  tripping  hende- 
casyllables,  as  of  a  Catullus  or  a  Pontanus.  Thus  Du 
Bellay  holds  up  for  imitation  those  exquisite  Italians,  Pe- 
trarch, Sannazaro,  Pontanus,  even  as  he  would  Horace, 
Ovid,  and  still  greater  classic  writers. 

As  for  subjects,  let  our  poet  choose  the  noble  ones  — 
"  quelque'un  de  ces  beaux  vieulx  Romans  Francoys,  comme 
un  Lancelot,  un  Tristan,  ou  autres;  et  en  fay  renaitre  au 
monde  un  admirable  Iliade,  et  laborieuse  Eneide."  Let 
him  take  fragments  from  our  old  French  Chronicles  as 
Livy  did  from  ancient  annals;  and  build  therefrom  a 
noble  history,  with  harangues  like  those  of  Thucydides 
and  Sallust.  Would  that  our  age  had  "  des  Mecenes  et 
des  Augustes  "  for  honor  nourishes  art;  and  science  will 
not  flourish  when  despised  by  all.  Antiquity  testifies  that 
heroes  need  poets  for  their  fame  — "  a  la  verite,  sans  la 
divine  Muse  d'Homere,  le  mesme  tumbeau  qui  couvroit  le 
corps  d'Achille  eust  aussi  accable  son  renom  " —  a  senti- 
ment expressed  in  the  twelfth  century  by  John  of  Salisbury 
in  the  Prologue  to  his  PoVicraticus.^ 

But  Du  Bellay  is  not  too  proud  to  advise  his  poet  (es- 
pecially when  he  is  at  work  upon  a  long  narrative  poem) 
to  enlarge  and  enliven  his  language  with  the  terms  of 
artisans  and  mechanics,  as  well  as  of  the  learned:  —  let 
him  keep  company  with  "  mariniers,  fondeurs,  peintres, 
engraveurs  et  autres,  savoir  leurs  inventions,  les  noms  des 
matieres,  des  outils,  et  les  termes  usitos  en  leurs  arts  et 
metiers,  pour  tirer  de  la  ces  belles  comparaisons  et  vives 
descriptions  de  toutes  choses." 

Du  Bellay  speaks  of  many  other  matters,  of  rhyme 
and  rhythm,  and  the  correct  way  of  declaiming;  and 
passes  on  to  an  eloquent  appeal  to  Frenchmen  to  write 
in  French;  as  Virgil  and  Cicero  wrote  in  Latin,  and  Pe- 
trarch, Boccaccio  and  Bembo  wrote  in  Italian,  however 
well  they  wrote  in  Latin  too.     On,  ye  Frenchmen,  finally 

2  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  II,  p.  141. 


338  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

concludes  the  peroration:  seize  the  antique  treasures; 
make  them  your  own.  Recall  the  fashion  of  your  Gallic 
Hercules,  "  tirant  les  peuples  apres  lui  par  leurs  oreilles 
avec  une  chaine  attachee  a  sa  langue!  " 

The  precepts,  the  tone  and  temper,  the  general  tenor, 
of  the  Defense  are  strengthened  and  illuminated  in  the 
prefaces  of  Ronsard  to  his  hopeless  epic  La  Franciade, 
and  in  his  Abrege  de  I' art  poetique  Francois,  These  later 
proclamations  from  the  prince  of  poets  are  as  sonorous 
and  striking  as  anything  uttered  in  the  first  enthusiasm  of 
the  Defense:  —  "  C'est  un  crime  de  lese-majeste  d'aban- 
donner  le  language  de  son  pays,  vivant  et  florissant,  pour 
vouloir  deterrer  [disinter]  je  ne  sais  quelle  cendre  des 
anciens."  ^ 

But  the  grand  illustration  of  whatever  principles  the 
Defense  intended  to  set  forth  was  afforded  by  the  poetic 
work  of  Ronsard  and  those  starlets  of  the  Pleiade  whose 
lights  paled  in  his  effulgence.  Their  work,  moreover, 
makes  a  fuller  disclosure  of  the  influence  working  in  their 
manifesto,  and  of  the  fact  that  while  they  and  all  the 
world  regarded  them  as  innovating  spirits,  they  had  their 
definite  antecedents.  The  genius  of  Alexandrianism 
worked  in  them,  the  genius  of  that  school  of  epigonic 
Greek  poetry  that  had  made  its  home  in  the  Alexandria 
of  the  Ptolemies,  a  school  which  was  learned,  meticulous 
and  precieux,  and  openly  made  form  its  idol."*  Their 
young  talents  were  also  inspired  by  another  and  a  differ- 
ent daintiness,  that  of  Petrarch,  or  perhaps  that  of  his 
followers,  the  Petrarchists.  Du  Bellay  began  with  the 
imitative  sensibility  and  affectation  of  that  school,  and 
later  declared  his  revolt  from  it.  Ronsard  also  passed  on 
and  through  its  atmosphere. 

Still  nearer  influences  touched  the  Pleiade,  from  French 
poets  scarcely  older  than  themselves,  whose  home  was 
the  flourishing  and  many-minded  city  of  Lyons.     Among 

•"•  Printed  in  rather  impossible  small  type  in  Laveaux's  edition  of  the 
Oeuvres  de  P.  de  Ronsard,  Tomes,  III  and  VI. 

*The  very  name  Pleiade  had  been  applied  to  a  group  of  seven  poets  in 
Alexandrian  times. 


LA  PLEIADE  339 

these  was  Maurice  Sceve,  whose  Delie  appeared  only  in 
1544;  also  Pontus  de  Tyard,  no  Lyonnais  by  birth,  but 
closely  connected  with  that  city.  He  was  himself  to  be 
numbered  with  the  Pleiade;  as  was  Daurat,  the  admirable 
classical  scholar,  who  revealed  Aeschylus  and  Pindar  and 
Homer  to  Ronsard  and  Baif.^ 

Of  the  Pleiade,  Du  Bellay  early  won  note  by  his  De- 
fense and  the  Olive,  a  book  of  imitated  or  occasionally 
translated  sonnets.  He  was  a  sensitive  soul.  If  his 
Olive  showed  little  beyond  apt  imitation,  his  own  senti- 
ments and  feelings  came  to  self-expression  in  his  Regrets, 
a  few  years  later.  From  his  twenty-eighth  to  his  thirty- 
third  year,  he  lived  in  Rome,  in  the  train  of  his  relative, 
Cardinal  Du  Bellay.  There  this  rather  melancholy  soul 
suffered  from  homesickness,  and  tended  to  withdraw  into 
spiritual  seclusion  on  account  of  the  same  affliction  of 
deafness,  which  had  so  much  to  do  with  driving  Ronsard 
from  the  life  of  a  courtier  to  the  life  of  letters.  Du 
Bellay  was  also  stung,  if  not  afflicted,  by  the  meanness  and 
poltroonery  of  ecclesiastical  court  life  at  Rome.  His  dis- 
gust, put  frankly  in  his  volume  of  Regrets  published  on 
his  return  to  France,  nearly  cost  him  the  countenance  of 
his  noble  relative,  the  Cardinal. 

But  his  stay  in  Rome  had  done  much  for  him,  especially 
as  he  had  loved  a  veritable  Roman  girl.  It  brought  him 
close  to  the  realization  of  his  humanistic  dreams  of  the 
loves  and  life  of  the  good  old  world;  perhaps  it  lured 
him,  against  his  principles,  to  write  Latin  hendecasyllables 
like  Catullus.  At  all  events,  with  such  waves  of  feeling 
as  had  risen  in  him,  his  tongue,  indeed  his  self,  was 
loosed;  and  found  expression  in  sonnets,  which  draw  us  to 
one  who  was  so  touchingly  sympathetic  with  himself  and 
the  human  yearnings  symbolized  in  his  own  sensibilities. 
Of  the  humanist  poets  of  his  time  and  race  he  was  the 
most  personal,  the  most  impulsively  and  naturally  expres- 

5  For  these  influences  on  the  Pleiade  see  Brunetiere,  Hist,  de  la  Lit. 
Franqaise  classique,  T.  I.  pp.  233-261.  Besides  those  already  named, 
Etienne  Jodelle  and  Remy  Belleau  make  up  the  seven.  The  names  change, 
however. 


340  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

sive.^  This  charming  poet  might  have  had  much  more 
to  say  had  not  death  cut  him  short. 

In  the  prodigious  fame  which  was  his  while  he  lived 
the  equal  friend  of  kings,  Ronsard  was  as  fortunate  as 
Petrarch.  Their  lots  differed  after  death.  For  Pe- 
trarch then  became  the  symbolic  idol  of  the  coming  time; 
while  Ronsard's  fame  was  clipped  by  the  unfriendly  crit- 
icism of  Malherbe.  There  was  a  curious  coincidence  in 
the  failure  of  what  each  would  like  to  have  regarded  as  his 
master-piece;  for  the  fame  of  Petrarch's  Africa  existed 
only  in  anticipation  and  for  a  factitious  moment  just  after 
the  poet's  death;  and  La  Franciade  fell  moribund  from 
the  press  in  spite  of  Ronsard's  enormous  fame  in  1572, 
when  it  appeared. 

The  effect,  if  not  the  recognized  influence  of  Ronsard, 
endured.  He  is  still  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  French 
literature;  and  while  he  lived,  he  was  the  prince  of  poets. 
Prodigies  were  connected  with  him.  His  birth,  which 
he  himself  alleged  to  have  taken  place  on  September  the 
eleventh,  1524,  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Pa  via  when 
Francis  I  was  taken  prisoner,  was  thought  a  providential 
glory  compensating  France  for  the  disaster  of  that  day.*^ 

Pierre  de  Ronsard  came  of  good  family,  his 
father  Louis  having  been  so  highly  regarded  by  royalty 
that  he  was  sent  to  Spain  in  charge  of  the  two  children 
of  Francis  I,  who  on  the  King's  liberation  were  given  as 
hostages  for  the  performance  of  the  Treaty  of  Madrid. 
Louis  de  Ronsard  had  some  taste  for  letters,  but  esteem- 
ing a  career  at  court  more  highly,  he  placed  his  son  as 
page  in  the  household  of  the  dauphin,  In  1536,  when  the 
lad  was  about  eleven  years  old.  Soon  the  dauphin  died, 
and  Ronsard  was  passed  on  to  the  service  of  his  younger 
brother,  Charles,  Duke  of  Orleans.     Next  he  was  sent  to 

^  On  Joachim  du  Bellay  see  E.  Faguet,  Seizihne  siccle ;  as  well  as 
Brunetiere,  o.  c.  I,  pp.  299-322. 

■^  The  poet  may  have  been  born  on  September  nth,  1524.  The  ab- 
surdity of  the  statement  in  the  text,  which  goes  back  to  Binet,  his  friend 
and  biographer,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  battle  of.Pavia  took  place  Febru- 
ary 24tb,  1525!!  La  vie  de  P.  de  Ronsard  by  Claude  Binet  (1586),  is 
short  and  interesting.  There  is  a  critical  edition  by  Paul  Laumonier 
(Paris,  1909). 


LA  PLEIADE  34^ 

Scotland  in  the  train  of  the  King's  daughter,  married  to 
James  Stuart.  She  did  not  live  long,  and  Ronsard,  still 
little  more  than  a  child,  returned  to  the  service  of  the 
Duke.  His  biographers  report  that  he  soon  excelled 
his  fellows  in  courtly  and  martial  accomplishments;  and 
indeed  he  was  a  graceful,  charming  youth.  He  was  al- 
ready fond  of  poetry.  Once  more  he  was  transferred  to 
the  service  of  another  royal  master,  Henry,  now  the  dau- 
phin, and  destined  to  become  king  as  Henry  II,  and  to 
die  young,  wounded  by  the  lance  of  Montgomery  in  a 
tournament. 

Sundry  voyages  completed  the  education  and  widened 
the  horizon  of  the  young  page.  But  he  became  afflicted 
with  deafness,  which  strengthened  his  plea  to  be  allowed 
to  devote  himself  to  letters,  or  as  his  prudent  father  would 
have  it,  to  the  Church.  The  Church  faded  from  Ron- 
sard's  view  on  his  father's  death  in  1544,  which  removed 
the  only  obstacle  to  a  literary  life. 

The  young  man  had  already  found  his  teacher  in  Dorat 
(or  Daurat)  who  soon  was  made  head  of  the  College  de 
Coqueret.  There  Ronsard  became  fully  and  devotedly 
his  scholar,  along  with  Baif,  still  a  boy.  Others  who  were 
to  belong  to  the  Pleiade  came,  among  them  Du  Bellay,  in 
1549,  whom  Ronsard  had  met  on  a  journey  from  Poic- 
tiers  to  Paris.  Binet,  Ronsard's  later  very  humble  friend 
and  biographer,  calls  Dorat  "  la  source  de  la  fontaine," 
from  which  all  this  band  of  poets  drank  of  the  "  eaux 
Pieriennes."  Under  him,  (with  some  instruction  from 
Tournebe  as  well)  Ronsard  gained  a  penetrating  knowl- 
edge of  the  classical  Greek  poetry,  and  equipped  himself 
from  the  Latin  arsenal  as  well.  He  studied  Homer;  he 
studied  the  great  Greek  tragedies;  he  gave  himself  to  Pin- 
dar. With  equal  zest  he  studied  the  Alexandrians,  Theo- 
critus, Callimachus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Aratus.  When 
Llenri  Estienne  published  his  Anacreon  in  1554,  Ronsard 
gave  himself  with  delight  to  those  sweet  verses  which  we 
recognize  as  "  Anacreontea,"  but  not  as  the  composition 
of  the  Teian  master.  The  Pleiade  of  course  accepted 
them  as  from  him,  and  were  delighted  to  find  a  classic 


342  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

so  sweetly  to  their  taste.     Ronsard  discovered  that  the 
torrents  of  Pindar  were  rather  rough  and  difficult: 

"  Anacreon  me  plait,  le  doux  Anacreon." 

And  he  would  seem  to  have  turned  from  Pindar  to  these 
smoother  forms  of  verse  and  feeling.  Doubtless  one  in- 
fluence and  then  another  might  thrust  itself  into  his  mood, 
and  take  form  beneath  his  facile  pen.  His  mind,  his  na- 
ture, was  so  thoroughly  impregnated  with  classic  reading, . 
that  only  under  drastic  contemporary  impulsion  (as  in  his 
Discoiirs  des  Miser es  de  cc  Temps)  could  he  write  alto- 
gether from  himself.  Moreover,  he  changed  and  re- 
arranged his  poems  so  constantly  throughout  his  life,  that 
the  critic  moves  on  unsafe  ground  in  attempting  to  arrange 
his  work  chronologically,  and  assign  to  one  period  the  in- 
spiration of  one  classic  poet,  and  to  another  period  the 
dominant  influence  of  another.  He  absorbed  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Latin  poets  quite  as  freely  as  the  Greek,  and 
rather  more  unconsciously.  He  owed  great  debts  to  Vir- 
gil always,  and  most  dreadfully  in  ha  Franciade.  Its  first 
four  books  (all  that  he  composed)  so  exhausted  the  epi- 
sodes of  the  Aeneid,  that  one  wonders  with  what  material 
he  could  have  carried  his  unhappy  epic  any  further. 
Horace,  and  the  Horatian  forms  also  influenced  him  con- 
stantly; and  perhaps  it  was  from  the  good  sense  of  Horace 
(which  had  kept  him  from  essaying  Pindaric  strains) 
that  Ronsard  drew  a  like  reluctance  in  the  end. 

The  classics,  Latin,  Greek,  Including  the  Alexandrians, 
were  not  the  only  sources  of  his  inspiration.  Petrarch 
was  an  alluring  mode  and  fashion.  His  lovely  Italian 
sonnets  and  canzoni  had  almost  classical  authority.  They 
furnished  that  attractive  preciosity  of  love  which  fasci- 
nated these  French  poets  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Ron- 
sard copied  Petrarch  In  sentiment  and  expression  In  his 
early  "  Amours  a  Cassandre."  Afterwards  he  seems  to 
have  passed  on  and  through  his  Influence,  as  a  more  sub- 
stantial body  passes  through  a  nebula. 

He  had  devoted  seven  years  to  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
to  the  composition  of  poems  under  classic  Inspiration, 


LA  PLEIADE  343 

when  in  1550  he  pubhshed  his  first  volume  of  Odes.  At 
once  his  fame  leaped  heavenward.  Friend  and  foe  alike 
saw  in  him  the  chief  of  the  band  whose  war  cry  had  been 
the  Defense  of  the  year  before.  His  fame  and  fortunes 
reached  their  zenith  through  the  next  ten  years;  and  he 
could  say  to  all  other  poets  of  the  realm: 

Vous  etes  mes  sujets,  et  je  suis  votre  roi. 

So  long  as  he  lived,  his  royal  place  was  not  seriously 
threatened.  If  his  material  fortunes  were  less  splendid 
than  his  reputation,  they  still  enabled  him  to  live  in  the 
enjoyment  of  courtly  pleasures  and  the  comforts  of  town 
and  country,  until  his  death  in  1585.  His  art  was  the 
mistress  of  his  most  strenuous  devotions.  His  towering 
consciousness  of  his  position  and  deserts  was  chequered  by 
touches  of  an  inner  humility.  In  fact,  his  nature  was 
rather  timid  and  retiring.  Rarely  he  mingled  in  the 
strife  of  pens  and  swords,  which  was  desolating  France. 
To  prove  his  orthodoxy  and  evince  his  patriotism,  he 
wrote  his  Discotirs  des  Miseres  de  ce  temps,  against  the 
reformed  and  now  Calvinized  religion;  which  his  love 
of  France,  his  love  of  pleasure,  his  love  of  letters,  com- 
bined to  impel  him  to  detest.  In  him,  humanism  em- 
phatically rejected  the  Reform.  Catholic  in  his  profes- 
sions and  beliefs,  his  life  was  pagan.  He  passed  his  days 
in  the  realization  of  pagan  sentiments  and  the  incidents 
of  pagan  mythology.  But  in  his  long  last  illness,  he 
ended  his  life  piously. 

Ronsard's  natural  talents  were  large  and  various. 
His  poetic  accomplishment  was  diverse  and  immense. 
Much  of  it  was  of  a  high  order.  He  accepted  the  prac- 
tice of  the  ancients  as  the  embodiment  of  poetic  principles, 
which  he  would  re-incorporate,  and  cause  to  live  again, 
in  French  verse.  At  his  best,  he  did  most  nobly  reflect  in 
his  poetry  the  training  and  discipline,  and  the  ennoblement 
of  language,  form,  and  conception,  which  classical  studies 
graft  upon  a  fine  poetic  talent.  When  not  at  his  best,  he 
imitated   the    classics   stiffly   and   pedantically,    deducing 


344  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

from  their  works  principles  having  no  Hving  or  universal 
application;  and  Incorporating  In  his  poetry  classical  ma- 
terial which  had  not  been  assimilated  and  recast  in  his 
own  mind  and  temperament.  He  delighted  to  fill,  or 
adorn,  and  intriguer  his  verse  with  obscure  mythological 
allusions.  He  could  be  pedantic,  prolix,  and  guilty  of 
false  emphasis.  ®  Hating  the  commonplace,  he  strove, 
and  often  with  brilliant  success,  to  ennoble  his  French 
vehicle  —  verse,  words,  forms  of  expression,  epithets. 
He  loved  splendid  and  striking  images,  despising  those 
which  were  conventional  and  added  nothing  to  the  Idea. 

A  marvellous  artist  In  metre  and  rhythm,  he  remod- 
elled and  re-established  the  "  Alexandrian  "  line  of  twelve 
or  thirteen  syllables.  This  mightiest  of  French  lines  was 
a  creature  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  had  fallen  Into  neglect. 
Under  the  Influence  of  his  classical  training  and  the  im- 
pregnation of  his  mind  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  hexa- 
meter, Ronsard  perfected  It,  restored  It  to  Its  place  of 
primacy,  and  exemplified  Its  adequacy.^  He  introduced 
as  well  a  number  of  other  verse-forms  previously  used  by 
French  poets,  and  fashioned  others  for  himself.  He 
would  fain  have  composed  the  music  for  his  verse,  as  Pin- 
dar did  so  naturally.  Here  he  failed.  But  to  find  his 
equal  In  the  abundance  and  variety  of  his  verse,  invention 
or  adaptation,  one  must  look  back  of  French  verse  alto- 
gether, to  the  fecund  genius  for  Latin  verse-forms  of  an 
Adam  of  St.  Victor  or  an  Abaelard.^'^  Ronsard  had  a 
fine  sense  of  the  harmony  which  should  exist  between 
rhythm  and  thought;  a  great  talent  for  the  adjustment  of 
verse-forms  to  the  thought  and  sentiment  of  the  poem. 

s  In  his  occasional  flattery,  Ronsard  may  fall  into  bathos,  as  in  his  son- 
net to  Robert  Gamier,  "  prince  des  tragiques,"  saying  that  if  Bacchus 
should  descend  to  Hades  now,  he  would  bring  back  with  him,  not  Aes- 
chylus, but  Gamier.  Sonnets  devers,  LXXXI,  Oeuvres,  Tome  V,  p.  354. 
Again,  on  the  death  of  Charles  IX  (!!)  he  declared:  "La  France 
n'estoit  pas  ny  digne  de  I'avoir,  ny  de  porter  ses  pas."  Ep'tiaphes, 
Oeuvres,  Tome  VII,  p.  170. 

9 "  Les  Alexandrins  tiennent  la  place  en  nostre  langue,  telle  que  les 
vers  heroiques  entre  les  Grecs  et  Latins,  lesquels  sont  composez  de  douze 
a  treize  syllabes,  les  masculins  de  douze,  les  foeminins  de  treize,  et  ont 
tousjours  leur  repos  sur  la  sixiesme  syllable."  Ronsard,  Abrege  de  VArt 
Poetique  Franqois. 

10  Cf.  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  II,  Chapter  XXXIII. 


LA  PLEIADE  345 

Five  books  of  Odes,  manifold  In  theme,  and  following 
Pindaric,  Horatlan,  or  Anacreontic  models;  six  or  seven 
books  of  A^noiirs,  some  eight  thousand  lines;  two  books 
of  Hymnes,  epic  and  lyric  recitals;  then  other  books  of 
Poemes,  of  Elegies,  of  Epigra^nmes,  of  Epitaphes,  of 
Mascarades,  of  Discours  over  his  Time's  miseries,  and  a 
still-born  Epic  —  was  not  this  an  unexampled  mass  for 
one  man  to  have  achieved?  ^^  Succeeding  poets  would 
scarcely  go  beyond  either  Ronsard's  range  of  theme  or 
formal  modelling.  And  through  It  all,  If  there  was  end- 
less borrowing,  there  was  also  much  real  expression  of 
a  master-poet's  personality,  of  his  own  loves  and  feelings, 
even  thoughts.  He  expressed  a  genuine  love  of  nature, 
of  the  country.  In  his  Eclogues  and  In  his  poems  on  his 
forest  of  Gatlne.  Epic  qualities  were  shown,  not  In  his 
hopeless  Franciade,  but  In  many  of  his  Odes  and  Hymnes. 
In  the  best  of  these  last,  his  long  discipline  of  "  Imita- 
tion "  of  the  classics  has  become  veritable  assimilation. 
Is  transformed  Into  power  and  Inspiration  of  his  own,  — 
into  the  self-expression  of  a  poet.^^ 

The  Roman  de  la  Rose,  especially  that  sophisticated 
longer  portion  written  by  De  Meun,  Incorporated  much 
substance  from  the  antique  philosophy  and  literature,  but 
was  little  affected  by  classic  form.  It  was  not  artistic 
quality  that  the  author  had  sought  In  his  reading.  The 
Plelade  on  the  other  hand  —  Ronsard  above  the  rest  — 
strove  to  gain  artistic  quality,  beauty,  ennoblement  of 
form,  from  a  more  thorough  and  direct  classical  study. 
Especially  they  were  keen  Greek  scholars;  and  had  read 
Homer,  Pindar,  and  the  Tragedians,  though  they  may 
have  found  the  very  beautiful  Theocritus  and  other  Alex- 
andrians quite  as  congenial  to  their  taste.     A  taste  for 

11  See  Brunetiere,  o.  c,  I,  pp.  323,  396. 

12  For  example  in  the  Hymn  to  Death,  the  last  in  Bk.  II,  {Oewvres, 
Tome  IV,  p.  364). 

Ronsard  has  been  so  excellently  analyzed  and  criticised  by  the  French 
masters  of  criticism,  that  a  foreigner  who  will  always  find  difficulty  in 
appreciating  the  finer  points  of  French  poetry,  may  leave  to  them  the 
literary  criticism  of  Ronsard.  See  particularly,  Brunetiere  in  his  Hist,  de 
la  Lit.  franc,  classique,  Vol.  I;  E.  Faguet,  in  his  Seizieme  Siecle,  £tudes 
litteraires;  and  J.  J.  Jusserand's  Ronsard, 


346  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Petrarch,  for  Sannazaro,  for  Bcmbo,  and  other  Italian 
literati,  who  also  cared  for  form  supremely,  further  In- 
cited them  to  the  study  of  form  in  these  Alexandrians,  or 
in  Horace,  Tibullus  and  Catullus;  all  of  whom  exemplified 
not  merely  form,  but  the  palpable  endeavor  for  it.  Those 
Alexandrians  and  Latins  cared  for  art,  seeking  even  Its 
highest  ars  celare  art  em. 

So  the  Plelade  represent  the  love  of  artistic  beauty  very 
consciously.  Not  that  there  had  been  an  utter  neglect 
of  It  before  thdm.  What  good  workman  lacks  this  love? 
But  they  emblazoned  It,  proclaimed  It,  felt  It  as  an  in- 
spiration throughout  their  entire  poetic  consciousness. 
And  more  than  all  others  who  had  preceded  them,  they 
left  It  as  a  rich  legacy  for  future  generations  of  French 
poets. 

Ronsard  had  foolish  friends  and  degenerate  imitators. 
The  over-learned  Baif  pursued  an  impossible  idea  of  his 
own,  that  of  writing  French  metrically.  The  result  was 
abhorrent;  yet  he  was  not  alone  in  his  idea.  Another 
poet,  Philippe  Desportes,  with  charm  and  facile  skill,  was 
Ignoble  In  thought  and  theme,  —  a  sheer  court  poet. 
Perhaps  Mathurin  Regnler  (1573-1613)  was  the  best 
of  these  epigoni.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  adher- 
ents of  the  Reformed  Religion,  who  were  poets  and  looked 
on  Ronsard  as  their  chief.  Among  them,  the  tedious  Du 
Bartas  returned  to  sacred  themes.  His  poetry  gained 
vogue  In  Germany,  where,  later,  Goethe  admired  It.  He 
may  possibly  have  influenced  Milton. 

Agrippa  D'Aubigne  (1551-1630)  was  a  far  more  in- 
teresting personality.  Learned  In  Latin,  Greek  and 
Hebrew,  he  was  consecrated  In  boyhood  by  his  father  to 
the  cause  of  the  Reform,  with  maledictions  on  his  head  If 
he  should  ever  blanch.  There  w^as  no  need  of  them.  At 
the  age  of  sixteen,  after  his  father's  death,  he  escaped  by  a 
window  at  night,  barefooted,  In  his  shirt,  to  hurry  after 
a  passing  troop  of  horse.  Thus  he  hurled  himself  Into 
the  wars  of  religion,  and  thereafter.  In  battles,  sieges, 
skirmishes  and  single  combats,  fought  wherever  fighting 
could  be  had.     Save  when  sick  or  wounded  or  In  prison, 


LA  PLEIADE  347 

his  sword  was  rarely  laid  aside,  till  the  conversion  of  his 
great  master  Henry  IV  to  Catholicism  forced  peace  upon 
this  devoted  and  outspoken  follower.  He  had  always 
had  the  habit  of  writing;  he  was  a  pamphleteer  as  well  as 
soldier,  producing  satires,  diatribes,  and  poems  constantly. 
He  would  not  follow  Henry  into  the  Roman  church,  and 
retired  to  his  government  of  Saintonge.  Verses  which  he 
had  composed,  some  of  them  literally  in  the  saddle,  some 
of  them  when  in  fever  from  wounds,  he  now  put  together 
in  his  still  protesting,  still  militant  Tragiqiies.  He  never 
gave  up  the  cause  of  the  Reform;  and  cursed  his  son  for 
abandoning  it.  Long  after  Henry's  death,  always  con- 
tending with  words  or  arms,  d'Aubigne  found  refuge  in 
Geneva.  Four  times  had  he  been  condemned  to  death! 
Militant,  active  to  the  end,  he  induced  Berne  and  other 
Swiss  cities  to  construct  mural  fortifications  which  he  him- 
self designed.  He  remarried  when  over  seventy,  and 
died  an  octogenarian.  He  was  the  grandfather  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon. 

He  left  a  mass  of  prose  and  verse;  a  Histoire  univer- 
selle  of  his  times;  Meditations  on  the  Psalms;  satires  in 
the  form  of  elaborate  prose  fictions;  political  discourses; 
odes,  sonnets,  poems  of  gallantry;  for  like  his  master 
Henry,  though  less  irrational  in  love,  this  Cavalier  of  the 
Reform  sighed  for  the  ladies  not  infrequently.  But  his 
chief  work,  Les  Tragiqiies  in  angry  Alexandrians,  are  a 
tableau  of  the  miseries  of  the  time.  Into  it  he  poured 
his  wrath  at  the  evil  turn  of  things;  while  scriptural  inci- 
dent and  mythological  allusion  jostled  each  other  in  the 
almost  epic  outcry  of  this  Huguenot,  swordsman,  coun- 
cillor, scholar,  poet,  indomitable  soul. 


CHAPTER  XV 

SELF-EXPRESSION    THROUGH   TRANSLATION  AND  APPRO- 
PRIATION :    AMYOT,    BODIN,    MONTAIGNE 

Not  only  In  Ronsard  and  his  Plelade,  but  in  others  who, 
like  him,  were  scholars  and  also  Frenchmen,  one  observes 
a  dual  interlocked  phenomenon  or  process,  very  notice- 
able through  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  this:  imitation 
or  appropriation  of  intellectual  material  from  the  an- 
tique culture  combines  with  the  ripening  French  mind  and 
personality,  promotes  its  development,  and  facilitates 
and  enriches  its  self-expression.  This  dual  process  may 
present  the  appearance  of  conflict  between  the  classical  or 
antique  influence  and  the  native  French  faculties,  which 
will  also  make  use  of  contemporary  foreign  strains  from 
Italy  or  Germany,  and  to  some  extent  fall  under  their 
influence.  Some  Frenchmen  will  accept  opinions  and  sen- 
timents straight  from  the  classics;  but  in  general  such 
was  the  organic. power  of  sixteenth  century  life  in  France, 
that  the  antique  influence  becomes  a  contribution  to  its 
advance.  The  French  mind  and  personality  emerges,  as- 
serts itself,  gains  strength  and  even  distinctness  from  the 
study  and  use  and  assimilation  of  the  ancient  material. 


The  Pleiade  made  a  literary  and  stylistic  use  of  the 
contents  of  Greek  and  Latin  poems  and  of  the  lessons  to 
be  drawn  from  their  form  and  manner  of  composition.  It 
is  Interesting  to  consider  other  Frenchmen,  publicists  and 
moralists,  who  make  a  different  use  of  different  antique 
material,  and  would  distil  from  it  the  wisdom  of  life  which 
it  so  notably  contained.  One  may  observe  in  the  first 
place  the  more  impersonal  phases  of  the  appropriation  of 
the  antique  bv  the  genius  or  vigor  of  the  French  race  or 

348 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  349 

people,  especially  in  that  most  palpable  expression  of  the 
race,  Its  language.  This  will  illustrate  plainly  both  sides 
of  the  dual  process.  There  Is  the  obvious  competition  be- 
tween the  French  and  Latin  languages.  French  is  used 
in  daily  life,  also  In  poetry.  But  Latin  Is  In  possession  of 
the  sphere  of  university  Instruction  and  of  all  branches  of 
learning,  of  theology  and  religion,  of  philosophy  and 
mathematics,  of  law  and  medicine.  French  is  supposed  to 
be  unfit  for  these  higher  branches.  Yet  the  advocates  of 
French  not  only  assert  its  capabilities,  but  put  their  mother 
tongue  to  school;  Instructing  and  amplifying  it  from  the 
example  and  resources  of  its  own  ancient  mother,  Latin, 
with  some  light  as  well  from  its  newly  adopted  foster- 
father,  Greek.  Under  classical  tuition  this  same  French 
tongue,  far  from  becoming  Latin,  asserts  Itself  with 
mounting  energy  and  enlarging  capacities,  and  presses  its 
claims  to  universal  use  by  Frenchmen,  even  for  the  highest 
literary  and  intellectual  purposes. 

For  the  victory  of  French,  prejudice  had  to  be  over- 
come, and  the  rude  tongue  made  fit  for  those  higher  uses. 
In  the  fourteenth  century  scholars  Introduced  Latin  words 
into  the  French  vernacular;  through  the  fifteenth,  this 
was  carried  on  diligently  by  greater  numbers.  Yet  In  the 
sixteenth  century  much  had  still  to  be  done  to  enlarge  and 
ennoble  the  French  language.  So  thought  Du  Bellay  and 
Ronsard  as  well  as  Henri  Estlenne  and  others  who  were 
none  the  less  convinced  that  French  was  the  true  literary 
vehicle  for  Frenchmen.  Along  different  paths,  they 
directed  their  efforts  to  this  common  end. 

In  spite  of  men's  devotion  to  the  classics,  the  necessity 
of  using  French  became  more  imperative.  As  the  social 
and  intellectual  life  of  court  and  town  progressed,  ways 
of  thinking  and  the  contents  of  thought  assumed  distinc- 
tive character,  and  for  that  reason  would  less  readily  flow 
in  the  thought-forms  of  antiquity,  less  easily  find  expres- 
sion in  Latin.  This  diflUculty  was  aggravated  by  the  ef- 
forts of  the  stricter  sort  of  scholars  to  purify  contempor- 
ary Latin  and  bring  it  back  to  classical  correctness.  For 
thereby  they  made  it  still  less  suitable  for  current  thinking. 


350  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

One  bears  in  mind  that  the  Romance  tongues  orginally 
had  not  developed  from  the  Latin  of  Cicero  and  Quin- 
tilian,  but  from  the  vulgar  Latin  of  the  people,  especially 
the  peoples  of  the  Prov^inces.  Hence  classical  Latin,  with 
its  suspended  thought  and  different  structural  articulation, 
was  always  alien  to  the  current  expression  of  the  current 
thought  of  the  so-called  "  Latin  Countries  "  of  Europe. 

The  progress  of  thinking  in  the  sixteenth  century,  con- 
tinuing the  like  mediaeval  tendency,  could  not  but  draw 
away  from  Latin.  And  whenever  any  branch  of  science 
advanced  beyond  the  data  supplied  from  ancient  sources, 
it  would  tend  to  pass  further  from  the  antique,  and  would 
less  naturally  conform  to  the  antique  vehicle  of  expres- 
sion: it  would  more  vigorously  demand  expression  in  a 
vernacular  language  vitally  corresponding  with  its  own 
progressing  ways  of  thinking.  Still  for  a  century  or  two, 
scholars,  philosophers,  physicists  might  write  in  Latin, 
deeming  it  a  more  satisfactory  medium,  or  in  order  that 
their  works  might  be  read  abroad.  But  how  inevitably 
any  such  practice  was  doomed  to  cease,  may  be  plainly 
seen  by  looking  forward  through  the  growth  of  the 
sciences  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  even 
to  our  own  time.  The  different  sciences  still  continue  to 
derive  or  devise  numberless  special  terms  out  of  cuttings 
and  combinations  of  Latin  and  Greek  words.  But  it 
would  now  be  a  stupid  tour  de  force  to  compose  a  scien- 
tific work  in  Latin;  for  the  people  who  evolved  that  lan- 
guage as  a  living  tongue  did  not  have  the  conceptions  or 
turns  of  thought  which  the  modern  author  wishes  to  ex- 
press. In  the  sixteenth  century,  the  substance  of  all  the 
sciences  was  largely  drawn  from  the  antique.  Yet 
thought  did  not  run  in  antique  conduits;  but  already  de- 
manded more  closely  fitting  forms  of  expression. 

A  far  more  obvious  reason  for  using  French  was  that 
it  was  the  mother  tongue,  understood  by  all,  and  spon- 
taneously used  by  all,  and  not  learned  through  years  of 
study.  Reasons  of  State  might  also  intervene,  as  when 
in  1539  a  royal  decree  directed  that  henceforth  all  pro- 
ceedings before  magistrates  should  be  in  French,  a  decree 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  351 

which  was  enforced  even  in  Provence.  G.  Tory  in  his 
Champfleury  published  in  1529,  and  before  him,  Claude 
de  Seyssel  in  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  Justin,  dedi- 
cated to  Louis  XII,  spoke  ardently  for  French,  and  made 
good  use  of  the  political  arguments  from  the  example  of 
the  Romans,  who  insisted  on  the  official  use  of  Latin 
throughout  their  conquered  provinces.  The  crown  was 
the  pulse  of  France;  and  as  was  natural,  its  influence 
through  the  reigns  of  Louis  XII,  Francis  I,  and  their 
successors  was  on  the  side  of  French. 

Starting  from  the  general  fact  that  in  the  first  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  Latin  was  used  at  the  University 
(except  in  the  primary  classes),  as  well  as  in  all  the 
sciences  and  learned  professions,  one  may  observe  the 
steps  by  which  French  intruded  upon  its  stately  mother,  in 
one  province  after  another.^ 

A  plea  for  the  use  of  French  in  education  was  made  by 
the  jurist,  Jean  Bodin,  in  1559;  but  Ramus,  boldest  of 
educational  innovators,  was  already  using  French  effec- 
tively, though  not  exclusively,  at  his  college  in  the  Paris 
University.  Yet  Latin  held  its  own  tenaciously;  and,  if 
we  turn  from  education  to  the  Catholic  Church,  we  find 
the  liturgy  in  Latin  even  to  our  own  day.  As  for  the 
Scriptures,  Erasmus  had  argued  in  favor  of  putting  them 
before  the  people :  and  a  few  years  later  Luther  followed 
with  his  powerful  German  translation  (1522).  The  next 
year  appeared  Lefevre's  translation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, approved  by  the  delicate  reformer  Bishop  Briconnet 
and  even  by  King  Francis,  but  at  once  hateful  to  the  Sor- 
bonne.  The  more  radical  reformers,  like  the  impetuous 
Farel,  used  French  in  writing  and  of  course  in  preaching 
before  the  year  1541,  when  Calvin  startled  the  theological 
rookeries  by  publishing  the  French  translation  of  his  In- 
stitute. One  may  say  that  from  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury, French  became  the  regular  language  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  wherever  French  was  spoken;  and  in 
order  to  meet  the  reformers  before  the  nobility  and  peo- 

1  For  the  following  sketch  I  have  relied  on  F.  Brunot,  "  La  langue  au 
XVI  Siecle,"  in  Vol.  Ill  of  Petit  de  Julleville.  Hist,  de  la  langue  et  de 
la  litterature  Franqaise. 


352  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

pie,  Catholic  advocates  also  resorted  to  the  vernacular 
when  necessary. 

Looking  to  the  sciences  and  professions,  we  find  that, 
from  the  opening  of  the  century,  oral  surgical  instruction 
was  given  in  French,  because  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
would-be  practitioners.  A  number  of  French  surgical 
treatises  were  in  use  when  the  great  Pare  -  entered  on  his 
career  of  surgical  practice  and  teaching.  His  instruc- 
tion was  carried  on  in  French,  and  in  French  were  written 
his  Methode  de  traicter  les  playes  f aides  par  harquehutes 
(i^/\.^)^  and  his  Traite  stir  la  peste  (1568).  Likewise  in 
spite  of  many  conservative  protests,  treatises  upon  the  art 
of  medicine  were  largely  written  in  French.  Through 
the  latter  part  of  the  century,  with  increasing  frequency, 
French  text-books  were  composed  in  Arithmetic,  Geom- 
etry, Astronomy,  Cosmography  and  Geography.  Chem- 
istry, or  rather  alchem.y,  and  physics  were  followed  rather 
in  Latin  treatises  or  translations  from  the  Greek  or  Latin. 
But  the  genial  observer  of  nature,  Bernard  Palissy,  ^ 
troubled  himself  as  little  as  possible  with  the  learned 
tongues.  He  was  born  about  15 10  and  died  in  prison,  a 
martyr  to  his  religious  convictions,  about  1589.  His  ob- 
servations upon  the  action  of  the  sea,  upon  fossils,  and 
his  discoveries  as  to  enamels  as  well  as  agriculture,  he  put 
in  an  individual  and  taking  French.  Naturally,  as  it 
were,  the  fruits  of  experiment  and  actual  observation  were 
put  in  the  living  language,  a  practice  continued  by  Olivier 
de  Serres,  who  In  his  Theatre  d' agriculture  et  mesnage  des 
champs  placed  the  translated  precepts  of  ancient  writers 
along  with  the  results  of  his  own  experience. 

Histories,  usually  composed  with  a  moral  or  political 
purpose,  were  for  the  most  pa'rt  written  In  French; 
though  unfortunately  the  chief  historian  of  the  second 
half  of  the  century,  De  Thou,  decided  to  write  his  Historia 
met  temporis  in  Latin.  On  the  other  hand  Etienne  Pas- 
quier,  as  patriotic  as  he  was  erudite,  stanchly  advocated 
French,    and  wrote   In   that   language   his   quite    famous 

2  Post,  Chapter  XXXII. 

3  Post,  Chapter  XXXIII. 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  353 

Recherches  de  la  France.  From  history  one  passes  over 
to  rhetoric  and  poetry,  where  Du  Bellay,  in  the  Defense^ 
spoken  of  in  the  last  chapter,  expresses  in  his  way  thoughts 
and  hopes  which  men  of  his  time  or  before  him  had  either 
expressed  or  put  in  practice. 

Along  with  the  endeavor  to  use  French  for  these  higher 
purposes  of  education,  science  and  literature,  went  the 
efforts  of  many  to  improve  the  language,  as  we  have  no- 
ticed for  example  with  Robert  and  Henri  Estienne,  and 
with  the  Pleiade.  Before  them  Jacques  Dubois  had  made 
a  sorry  attempt  to  purify  his  mother  tongue,  which  he 
regarded  as  a  decayed  Latin,  by  endeavoring  to  re-Latin- 
ize it.  But  saner  and  greater  men,  like  the  Estiennes, 
recognized  the  sovereign  authority  of  usage.  Montaigne 
pointed  out  that  the  "  beaux  espris  "  raise  their  mother 
tongue  less  by  verbal  inventions  than  through  the  noble 
uses  to  which  they  put  the  language,  giving  weight  and 
dignity  and  further  meaning  to  the  words  they  find  in  it.* 


II 

From  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  desire  for 
access  to  the  antique  literature  created  a  demand  for 
translations;  and  the  work  of  the  translator  becomes  an 
important  feature  of  the  active-minded  life  of  the  time. 
Many  Latin  classics  were  translated,  the  popular  Italian 
authors,  as  well  as  certain  Spanish  books.  The  transla- 
tion of  the  Greek  classics  was  undertaken,  at  first  from 
Latin  versions,  since  very  few  Frenchmen  in  the  early 
decades  of  the  sixteenth  century  knew  enough  Greek  to 
translate  directly.  This  was  improved  upon  in  the  next 
generation,  when  Greek  scholarship  had  made  greater 
progress, —  the  generation  of  Henri  Estienne,  Danes, 
Dorat,  Tournebe  and  Ronsard,  the  generation  also  of 
Amyot,  the  translator  of  Plutarch's  Lives  and  Morals. 

Translations  of  the  classics  corresponded  with  a  desire 
among  tolerably  educated  people  to  read  them.  They 
implied  a  tacit  recognition  by  the  translator  and  his  audi- 

^  Essais,  Liv.  Ill,  5. 


354  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ence  that  the  French  language  was  fit  to  express  the  an- 
tique thought.  Making  them  was  a  quasi  self-assertion, 
a  claim  of  victory  for  the  French  tongue.  The  use  of 
French  to  translate  the  round  of  ancient  thought  and  cir- 
cumstance enriched  the  language  with  new  words  and 
concepts,  and  gave  it  new  flexibility  and  capacity.  More- 
over, the  reading  and  enjoyment  of  the  translations  meant 
a  more  general  reception  of  Greek  and  Roman  thoughts; 
it  meant  the  assimilation  of  such,  their  reappllcatlon  under 
sixteenth  century  conditions,  and  their  partial  transforma- 
tion in  the  French  temperament  and  acceptance  of  life. 
This  is  exemplified  in  the  work  of  Am.yot. 

Born  of  lowly  parentage,  he  was  endowed  with  the 
desire  and  aptitude  for  learning,  and  with  the  faculty  of 
making  his  learning  acceptable  in  high  places.  Some- 
how he  won  his  education,  the  best  that  Paris  could  give, 
under  the  royal  professors  Toussain  and  Danes.  They 
recommended  him  to  that  tutelary  goddess  of  learning, 
Marguerite  of  Navarre,  who  placed  him  in  a  chair  of 
Greek  and  Latin  at  the  University  of  Bourges,  His 
translation  of  the  Greek  romances  Daphnis  and  Chloe  and 
Theagenes  and  Chariclea  won  the  gift  of  a  rich  abbey 
from  Francis  I.  Either  the  King,  or  Amyot's  affinity 
with  the  old  author,  commanded  him  to  translate  Plu- 
tarch. The  selection  was  a  stroke  of  fortune  or  of 
genius.  Blessed  with  an  Income  and  abundant  leisure,  he 
set  forth  on  a  delightful  scholar's  pilgrimage  to  Italy. 
The  year  may  have  been  1547,  and  he  was  about  thirty- 
five.  He  made  long  stays  In  Venice  and  Rome,  studying, 
searching  for  manuscripts,  Incidentally  winning  new 
patrons.  In  1554  he  published  a  translation  of  Diodorus 
Siculus,  a  manuscript  of  whose  work  he  had  discovered. 
Before  then,  however,  he  was  living  with  Plutarch,  trans- 
lating his  Lives ^  entering  upon  his  Morals,  which  he  trans- 
lated afterwards.  He  lived  in  Plutarch,  and  Plutarch 
was  to  live  again  in  him. 

Plutarch  was  indeed  a  world,  and  a  world  wherein  a 
Frenchman  of  the  sixteenth  century  could  readily  find 
himself  at  home.     For  the  man  who  amid  the  lengthening 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  355 

shadows  of  the  antique  world,  passed  his  years  between 
Chaeronela  and  Rome,  saw  his  ancient  worthies  through 
human  cosmopolitan  eyes,  and  presented  them  In  human 
guise  with  human  attributes ;  so  that  they  could  be  admired 
and  understood  by  humane-minded  men  In  centuries  to 
come.  His  writings  were  an  encyclopaedia  of  antique 
humanity,  affording  Instruction,  precept,  example,  counte- 
nance or  warning,  for  any  man  In  any  situation. 

Homo  sum;  human!  nil  a  me  alienum  puto  —  if 
Plutarch  did  not  quote  this  Menander-Terence  line,  he 
exemplified  It  at  Its  very  best.  For  he  found  nothing 
alien  from  him  In  the  human  story,  that  could  Illumine  and 
illustrate  and  teach.  Amyot  became  his  mirror,  his  alter 
ego^  and  yet  remained  a  Frenchman  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. His  translation  even  carried  further  the  universal- 
izing of  the  encyclopaedia  of  antique  man.  He  was  a 
true  translator,  who  rendered  his  original  truly.  He  did 
not  change  Plutarch's  illustrious  ones  to  sixteenth  century 
Frenchmen,  nor  travesty  the  ancient  world.  But  with 
penetrating  sympathy  he  softened  recalcitrant  terms  and  in 
apt  French  phrase  made  the  old  names  and  Incidents  and 
situations  live  again. 

This  was  necessarily  a  modernizing  and  universalizing. 
It  was  a  presentation  of  Plutarch's  heroes  not  as  French- 
men, but  in  such  way  that  Frenchmen  could  understand 
them,  and  see  the  underlying  human  Identity  between 
Greeks  and  Romans  and  themselves.  These  personages 
did  not  cease  to  be  Greeks  and  Romans  because  they  were 
made  to  show  palpably  the  same  traits  which  Frenchmen 
possessed,  by  virtue  of  a  common  humanity.  Nor  did 
their  setting  cease  to  be  antique  because  retouched  with 
the  likenesses  or  analogies  pervading  human  circumstance. 

Even  here  the  splendid  result  was  not  Plutarch's  alone 
—  not  alone  the  work  of  the  man  of  Chaeronela.  It  was 
also  the  product  of  Amyot's  understanding  of  life,  and  of 
the  capacities  of  the  French  language  and  Amyot's  faculty 
of  managing  and  expanding  It  so  as  to  render  the  antique 
incidents  and  thoughts.  Thus  these  translations  marked 
.Amyot's   French  assimilation   and  presentation  of   Plu- 


356  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tarch's  world,   and  became  an  expression  of  the  trans- 
lator's mind. 

Amyot  knew  that  he  was  presenting  the  universal 
human  which  was  Plutarch.  The  expressions  of  his 
lengthy  prefatory  "  aux  lecteurs  "  are  quite  clear.  Plu- 
tarch is  history,  and  "  I'histoire  est  a  la  verite  le  tresor  de 
la  vie  humaine."  It  Is  the  great  school — "  une  regie  et 
instruction  certalne,  qui  par  examples  du  passe  nous 
enseigne  a  juger  du  present,  et  a  prevoir  Tadvenir,  a  fin 
que  nous  sgachions  ce  que  nous  devons  suyvre  ou  appeter, 
et  qu'il  nous  faut  fuir  et  eviter."  As  in  a  picture,  it  sets 
before  our  eyes 


"  les  choses  dignes  de  memoire,  qu'anciennement  ont  faictes  les 
pulssants  peuples,  les  roys,  et  princes  magnanimes,  les  sages  gou- 
verneurs,  et  vaillans  capitaines,  et  personnes  marquees  de  quelque 
notable  qualite,  nous  representant  les  moeurs  des  nations  estran- 
geres,  les  loix  et  coustumes  anciennes,  les  desseings  des  hommes 
partlculiers,  leurs  conseils  et  enterprises,  les  moyens  qu'ilz  ont 
tenus  pour  parvenir,  et  leurs  deportemens,  quand  ils  sont  parvenus 
aux  plus  hauts,  on  blen  qu'ilz  ont  este  dejettez  au  plus  bas  degrez 
de  la  fortune." 

The  man  who  has  read  these  histories  will  encounter  no 
chance  of  peace  or  war  in  which  he  will  not  find  their 
counsel  apt  and  prudent,  to  guide  his  choice  and  action, 
moderate  his  elation  in  prosperity  and  sustain  him  in  ad- 
versity. History  with  its  examples  is  a  better  teacher 
than  books   of   moral   philosophy   with   their   precepts.^ 

"  Brief  ...  la  lecture  des  histoires  est  une  eschole  de  prudence, 
que  rhomme  se  forme  en  son  entendement,  en  considerant  meure- 
ment  I'estat  du  monde  qui  a  este  par  le  passe,  et  observant  diligem- 
ment  par  quelles  loix,  quelles  moeurs  et  quelle  discipline,  les  em- 
pires, royaumes  et  seigneuries  se  sont  jadis  premierement  establles, 
et  depuis  maintenues  et  grandies,  ou  au  contraire  changees,  dimin- 
uees  et  perdues." 

Such  is  history's  obvious  function:  and  most  necessary 
for  princes  and  people  In  high  station,  giving  them  in- 

5  The  last  thought  is  in  Aquinas's  Summa,  and  so  is  doubtless  Aristo- 
telian. :  ., 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  357 

struction  without  flattery,  which  those  they  live  with  will 
not  give  them.  Beyond  this,  what  pleasure  does  it  give 
us,  moving  with  fear  and  hope  and  joy,  through  pains  and 
dangers  not  our  own !  Happiness  and  wonder  come  upon 
us  as  we  view  in  this  eloquent  picture  "  les  cas  humains 
representez  au  vif,  et  les  variables  accidens  que  le  vieil- 
lesse  du  temps  a  produits  des  et  depuis  I'origine  du 
monde."  A  spectacle  indeed,  amazing  and  most  intimate 
as  well:  les  cas  humains,  the  human  incidents,  which  might 
have  been  and  still  may  be  ours:  indeed  which  certainly 
are  ours  as  well  as  theirs  on  whom  they  fell;  for  nothing 
that  is  human  is  not  ours. 

We  may  leave  our  Amyot  with  his  Plutarch  and  ours. 
In  him  Plutarch  lived  again,  delighting  and  expanding  the 
natures  of  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  through  genera- 
tions. Montaigne  seems  to  have  become  Montaigne 
through  Amyot;  from  North's  English  version  of  him 
spring  Shakespeare's  Coriolanus,  Julius  Caesar,  An- 
thony and  Cleopatra.  The  fortunes  of  his  book  were 
wonderful;  his  own  were  prosperous  and  troubled.  He 
was  the  preceptor  of  two  princes,  who  became  Charles  IX 
and  Henri  III  of  France.  He  was  made  grand  almoner 
of  France,  and  bishop  of  Auxerre.  Troubles  came  upon 
him  from  the  clergy  of  his  diocese.  He  was  in  danger 
of  assassination;  he  may  have  been  excommunicated;  at 
least  he  was  compelled  to  beg  for  absolution.  He  died  in 
1593  eighty  years  old,  —  loved  by  future  generations. 


Ill 

How  a  French  mind  —  that  of  a  publicist  — could  make 
use  of  antique  (and  also  mediaeval!)  thought,  and  also 
express  itself  with  vigor  and  originality,  is  shown  in  Jean 
Bodin,  a  native  of  Angers,  born  in  1530  and  dying  in 
1596.  Although  living  through  the  bitterest  periods  of 
the  Wars  of  Religion,  he  rose  above  the  atmosphere  of 
strife,  and  viewed  human  institutions  with  admirable  in- 
telligence —  sometimes.*'    His  Six  livres  de  la  Repiihlique 

^  "  Jean  Bodin  est  un  bon  autheur  de  nostre  temps,  et  accompagne  de 


35§  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

appeared  In  1576.  Their  purpose  was  to  bring  the  ex- 
perience of  mankind,  shown  by  the  histories  of  ancient 
and  modern  peoples,  to  bear  upon  the  questions  of  the 
nature  of  the  State  and  the  best  forms  of  government 
and  law.  Bodin  would  apply  the  argument  of  facts,  of 
universal  experience.  *'  La  philosophic  mourrait  d'in- 
anition  au  milieu  de  ses  preceptes,  si  elle  ne  les  vivifiait 
par  I'historie,"  he  says  in  words  recalling  Amyot.  Being 
a  magistrate  and  jurist,  he  would  also  find  in  history,  the 
principles  of  jurisprudence.  For  himself,  he  will  decide 
his  main  problem  in  favor  of  a  law-abiding  but  absolute 
hereditary  monarchy. 

The  Repiihliqiie  was  the  fruit  of  enormous  reading  and 
assembling  of  evidence;  Its  matter  was  well  ordered  to 
the  purpose  of  the  author's  arguments.  All  parts  of  the 
organism  of  the  State  were  presented  more  largely  and 
systemiatically  than  by  any  previous  waiter,  and  so  the 
sum  of  this  great  matter  was  laid  before  the  reading 
French  public.  The  work  was  translated  at  once  Into 
Latin,  that  it  might  reach  an  international  audience. 
Ten  years  before,  Bodin  had  composed  In  Latin  a  pre- 
liminary, but  weighty  work,  entitled:  Methodus  ad  fac- 
ilem  historiariim  cognitionem. 

The  details  of  Bodin's  argument  are  beyond  the  pres- 
ent purpose.  Yet  It  is  Interesting  to  observe  how  his  vig- 
orous mind  moved  with  apparent  independence  and  at  the 
same  time  was  enthralled  by  its  Inheritance  and  environ- 
ment. Bodin  had  read  Plato's  Republic  and  had  studied 
the  Politics  of  Aristotle.  Yet  in  his  conception  of  the 
State,  he  agrees  with  neither.  For  he  conceives  the  State 
to  consist  In  the  control  of  a  number  of  menaces,  (house- 
holds), and  of  that  which  is  common  to  them  (qui  leur  est 
commun),  by  the  sovereign  power.  He  reasons  from  the 
analogy  of  the  family,  which  consists  in  the  control  by  its 
head  of  what  is  common  to  Its  members. 

Besides  his  encyclopaedic  marshalling  of  evidence,  per- 
haps his  most  striking  contribution  to  a  knowledge  of  the 

beaucoup  plus  de  jugement  que  la  tourbe  des  escrivailleurs  de  son 
siecle,  et  merite  qu'on  le  juge  et  considere."  Montaigne,  Essais,  II, 
XXXII. 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  359 

factors  of  the  human  story  was  his  recognition  of  the 
effect  of  climate  upon  racial  development,  of  the  role  of 
environment  in  the  advance  or  retrogression  of  the  facul- 
ties and  fortunes  of  a  people.  In  this  and  in  other 
matters/  he  was  the  forerunner  of  later  publicists,  above 
all  of  Montesquieu. 

So  Bodin  could  think  with  originality,  handle  master- 
fully the  ancient  thought,  and  accept  or  depart  from  it, 
for  better  or  worse,  according  to  the  requirements  of  his 
argument.  But, —  and  the  "  but  "  is  a  very  large  one  — 
he  had  other  sides.  He  was  held  by  the  current  supersti- 
tions of  his  time,  and  even  by  its  cruelty.  He  believed  in 
sorcery,  and  wrote  a  book  entitled  Demonomanie  des 
Sorciers.  Again  he  supported  himself  upon  experience ! 
As  a  magistrate,  he  had  conducted  trials,  and  knew  the 
facts,  which  had  been  judicially  proved!  He  would  stand 
by  the  decisions  of  tribunals,  which  condemned  witch  or 
sorcerer  upon  the  facts !  Alas !  these  facts  were  but  a 
proof  that  this  large-minded  man  was  held  by  the  super- 
stitions of  his  own  time,  and  of  the  prior  centuries,  in- 
cluding antiquity.  His  considerations  upon  the  effect  of 
climates  were  made  half  foolish  by  his  acceptance  of 
astrology,  of  planetary  influence,  behefs  which  had  re- 
newed their  vigor  with  the  revival  of  antique  letters !  ^ 


IV 

The  Essays  of  Montaigne  ^  are  the  most  striking  ex- 
ample of  the  emergence  of  an  ensemble  of  personal 
opinion,    and   still   more   personal    expression,    from   its 

'''As  in  his  protest  against  slavery,  and  his  philosophic  approval  of  re- 
ligious toleration. 

^  One  cannot  blame  Bodin.  The  great  surgeon  Ambroise  Pare  ac- 
cepted sorcery  on  the  same  grounds  as  he.  Belief  in  it  was  practically 
universal:  only  Montaigne  did  not  accept  the  evidence.  Cf.  post,  Chap- 
ter XXXII. 

9  Les  Essais  de  Montaigne  by  Motheau  and  Jouast  in  seven  small  val- 
umes  (Paris,  1886),  Is  a  pleasant  and  convenient  edition.  It  follows  the 
text  of  1588,  and  gives  the  additions  of  1595, —  a  discrimination  required 
by  the  intelligent  reader.  One  need  not  refer  to  the  enormous  literature 
upon  Montaigne.  I  have  found  Pierre  Villey  very  useful:  Les  Sources 
et  revolution  des  Essais  de  Montaigne,  2  vols.  (Paris,  1908)  ;  Montaigne, 
Textes  choisis,  etc.,  (Bib.  Frangaise),  Paris,  1912. 


36o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

classical  matrix.  In  them  a  French  personality  reached 
self-expression  through  assimilation  and  application  of 
classical  material,  as  well  as  through  consideration  of  Its 
own  humanity  and  the  ways  of  humanity  at  large.  Yet 
this  expression  of  a  French  personality  does  not  cease  to 
represent  the  humane  moralizings  of  the  later  classical 
spirit.  As  Seneca  was  a  moralist  In  his  fashion  and 
Plutarch  in  his,  so  was  Montaigne  in  a  manner  which 
had  drawn  upon  them  both. 

The  classics  did  not  make  this  close  scrutinizer  of  life, 
opinion  and  belief;  but  they  gave  him  matter  for  his 
scrutiny,  and  disciplinary  Instruction  throughout  the 
process.  The  Essays  show  the  final  stages  of  Montaigne's 
evolution,  the  stages  of  his  final  self-expression.  They 
are  the  history  of  the  man  during  the  last  twenty  years 
of  his  life. 

With  the  articulate  development  of  his  opinions,  the 
expression  of  them,  to  wit,  the  Essay,  takes  form.  It 
ceases  to  be  a  fagot  of  borrowed  instances  or  opinions; 
and  becomes  a  personal  composition;  cited  Instances  and 
opinions  are  Illustrations. 

A  virtuoso  In  egotism,  Montaigne  was  an  Incompara- 
ble scrutinizer  of  himself.  Self-scrutiny  may  have  various 
motives  and  draw  toward  different  ends;  It  may  become 
the  agent  of  Intense,  even  inspired,  purpose.  In  Mon- 
taigne It  never  won  elan.  But  It  possessed  a  large  fac- 
ulty of,  as  It  were,  reciprocal  generalization,  bringing  this 
scrutinizer's  consideration  of  the  experience  of  mankind 
to  bear  upon  his  knowledge  of  himself,  and  in  return  pre- 
senting his  self-knowledge  In  Its  universal  bearing  upon 
the  knowledge  of  man. 

The  way  In  which  Montaigne  was  reared  and  educated 
confirmed  his  natural  disposition.  Through  honorable 
exertions  his  family  had  become  wealthy  and  respected 
In  Bordeaux.  Within  a  generation  or  two  an  estate  In 
the  neighborhood  had  been  acquired.  Montaigne's 
father  was  a  prudent  man  of  affairs,  and  as  a  gentleman 
followed  the  profession  of  arms.  He  brought  his  son 
up  carefully,   perhaps  too   tenderly,  certainly  In  a  way 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  361 

to  aggravate  his  physical  and  Intellectual  sensitiveness. 
The  father  was  a  Catholic;  his  wife,  Montaigne's  mother, 
is  said  to  have  been  a  Protestant  and  indeed  a  Jewess. 
At  all  events,  the  home  atmosphere  was  one  of  religious 
tolerance.  The  boy,  who  was  born  in  1533,  was  taught 
Latin  as  his  mother  tongue,  was  sent  to  school  and  college, 
and  in  his  early  teens  put  to  study  law  at  Toulouse.  Fin- 
ishing his  legal  studies  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  was 
made  a  magistrate  and,  in  a  little  while,  counselor  to  the 
Parlement  of  Bordeaux.  He  retained  this  office  till  1570, 
when,  his  father  having  died,  he  retired  to  his  estate. 
He  was  already  married  and  a  father.  In  1580  he  pub- 
lished the  first  two  books  of  his  Essays,  and  travelled  in 
Germany  and  Italy.  While  absent  he  was  elected  mayor 
of  Bordeaux,  an  honorable  position  which  he  hesitatingly 
accepted.  He  was  re-elected  two  years  later.  He  would 
seem  to  have  discharged  this  office  satisfactorily,  though 
without  zeal,  keeping  away  from  the  city  when  the  plague 
raged  there.  Politically,  through  the  difficult  times  in 
which  he  lived,  Montaigne  avoided  partisanship.  He 
was  a  moderate  royalist,  a  conservative  who  distrusted 
change.  He  enjoyed  health,  but  seems  to  have  been  lazy, 
and  averse  to  severe  physical  exertions  or  prolonged 
mental  application.  At  all  events  he  says  so.  He  pub- 
lished the  third  book  of  his  Essays  in  1588,  and  in  1592  he 
died.  The  Essays  brought  wide  repute  to  this  man  of 
position,  whose  gentility  nevertheless  was  not  so  ancient 
as  to  have  lost  its  self-consciousness.  Disliking  tedious 
forms  and  ceremonies,  he  did  not  forget  that  he  was 
Michel,  Sieur  de  Montaigne,  whose  father  had  been 
mayor  of  Bordeaux,  and  who  himself  once  held  that  office 
as  the  successor  of  one  Marechal  de  France  and  the  pred- 
ecessor of  another.  For  the  rest,  his  temperament  and 
mentality,  as  well  as  his  opinions,  disclose  themselves  in 
his  Essays,  which  became  an  examination  and  a  mirror 
of  himself. 

Of  all  sixteenth  century  Frenchmen,  Montaigne  most 
surely  made  a  personal  path  through  the  teachings  of 
antiquity,  the  practical  teachings  of  its  later  phases  of 


362  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

accumulated  precept  and  blended  moralizing  philosophies. 
His  affinities  were  with  the  late  pagan  centuries  which  im- 
mediately preceded  and  followed  the  opening  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  were  so  practically  or  ethically  con- 
cerned with  human  conduct  and  vicissitudes.  Within  this 
sphere,  Montaigne's  interest  and  curiosity  appear  univer- 
sal; nothing  that  was  human  failed  to  prick  him.  But 
his  mental  activity  does  not  reach  beyond  this  round  of 
domestic  consideration;  it  never  addresses  itself  to  the 
heights  of  inhuman  knowledge,  nor  is  touched  by  cosmic 
problems  or  any  matter  of  physics  or  natural  science. 
He  had  not  the  detached  interest  of  a  Democritus,  a  Plato 
or  an  Aristotle  in  the  knowledge  which  does  not  bear 
directly  upon  human  life.  His  mental  scope  and  entire 
self-expression  lie  within  the  sphere  of  humanism. 

Accordingly  it  goes  without  saying  that  in  his  studies  he 
had  not  mastered  the  successive  systems  of  Greek  phil- 
osophy, austere  and  difficult  in  their  aloofness.  He  did 
not  know  the  theories  of  early  Eleatics  and  Atomists;  nor 
had  he  penetrated  the  thought  of  Plato,  having  neither  the 
temper  nor  the  application.  Yet  in  his  later  years  he 
read  the  Dialogues  In  Ficino's  Latin  translation;  for 
he  was  fascinated  by  the  personality  of  Socrates,  whose 
sayings  he  gathered  also  from  Xenophon's  Memorabilia. 
As  for  Aristotle,  Montaigne  had  spent  scant  hours  in 
his  perusal.  Epicureanism  he  had  studied  in  Lucretius, 
and  Stoicism  mainly  in  Seneca.  But  he  vitally  mastered 
whatever  he  learned,  absorbing  the  cosmopolitan  tempers 
and  blended  philosophic  moralizings  of  Cicero  and  Vir- 
gil, Horace  and  Seneca  and  Plutarch.  He  read  and  re- 
read and  never  ceased  to  read  the  last,  the  Illustrious 
Lives  and  the  Morals  or  philosophic  pamphlets,  all  in  the 
Incomparable  translations  of  Amyot,  to  whom  he  bears 
so  warm  a  testimony  of  gratitude  and  admiration  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  essay  of  his  second  book. 

Montaigne  also  read  widely  In  the  Latin,  French  and 
Italian  writers  of  his  own  and  the  preceding  generations. 
They  promoted  the  development  of  his  sixteenth  century 
personality;  and  helped  him  to  lay  an  independent  path 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  363 

through  the  opinions  of  the  ancients.  His  own  judg- 
ments are  evolved  as  he  proceeds  through  Stoicism  and 
Epicureanism;  then  he  is  pricked  by  the  Scepticism  of 
Pyrrho.  This  also  was  a  phase  through  which  he  passed 
on  to  the  gentler  questionings  of  the  later  Academy, 
which  did  not  preclude  the  attainment  of  sufficiently  prag- 
matic and  positive  opinions.  Horace  comes  to  his  aid; 
and  he  expands  the  sinews  of  his  moral  nature  with  the 
experience  and  fortitude  of  Plutarch's  men  and  the  varied 
philosophic  suggestions  of  Plutarch's  moral  and  philo- 
sophic pamphlets.  In  the  course  of  these  studies  and 
lucubrations,  he  turns  from  Cato,  the  finished  Stoic,  to 
Socrates,  the  ideal  sage. 

Attracted  at  the  first  by  Stoicism,  Montaigne  can  say: 
"La  vertu  ne  veut  estre  suyvie  que  pour  elle  mesme; 
et  si  on  emprunte  parfois  son  masque  pour  autre  occa- 
sion, elle  nous  I'arrache  aussitost  du  visage."  He  even- 
tually wearied  of  Stoicism,  as  the  antique  world  wearied 
of  it.  One  becomes  ennuied  with  self-reliance  and  steel- 
ing oneself  against  life's  trials  and  last  catastrophe:  one 
is  bored  with  reading  about  Cato  and  learning  how  to  die. 
An  early  Essay,  composed  in  1572  when  Montaigne  was, 
as  he  says  in  it,  thirty-nine  years  old,  bears  the  title:  Que 
philosopher  c' est  apprendre  a  moiirir,  a  tedious  antique 
sentiment,  which  fortunately  had  not  been  exemplified 
either  in  the  philosophy  or  the  Hfe  of  the  ancient  world. 
Montaigne  takes  it  from  Cicero.  Study  and  contempla- 
tion serve  this  end  of  severing  the  soul  from  the  body, 
and  teaching  us  how  to  die.  All  are  agreed  that  happi- 
ness is  our  aim,  though  men  differ  as  to  the  means.  We 
cannot  be  content,  however,  with  the  fear  of  death  before 
our  eyes;  and  so  philosophies  seek  to  instruct  us  to  de- 
spise It. 

In  some  such  way,  none  too  clearly,  Montaigne  chooses 
to  moralize  at  the  beginning  of  this  Essay.  He  draws 
the  conclusion:  "  Le  but  de  nostre  carrlere  c'est  la  mort: 
c'est  I'object  necessaire  de  nostre  visee;  si  elle  nous 
effraye,  comme  est  II  possible  d'aller  un  pas  avant  sans 
fiebre?    Le  remede  du  vulgarire,  c'est  de  n'y  penser  pas. 


364  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Mais  de  quelle  brutale  stupidlte  luy  peut  venir  un  si  gros- 
sler  aveuglement?  "  As  the  essay  proceeds,  the  natural- 
ness of  death  is  made  to  appear;  and  a  late  addition  points 
to  the  opinion  that  life  and  death  are  indifferent. 

Naturally,  Montaigne  was  more  readily  influenced  by 
what  he  read  in  the  first  years  of  his  retirement  than 
when  he  had  pondered  longer  upon  the  relative  invalidity 
of  human  opinion.  His  earlier  essays  consist  rather  of 
excerpted  incidents  and  sentiments  illustrating  some  topic 
in  his  mind.  Later  he  will  not  so  quickly  veer  his  helm 
to  puffs  of  suggestion;  his  essays  will  embody  his  own 
thoughts  more  organically,  and  those  thoughts  have  be- 
come more  penetrating.  He  decided  to  make  less  of 
death :  it  ceased  to  be  the  but  or  final  end,  and  becomes 
merely  the  bout  or  terminus,  of  life.  To  live  happily, 
rather  than  to  die  happily  is  the  great  matter:  "  A  mon 
advis,  c'est  '  le  vivre  heureusement,'  non,  comme  disoit 
Antisthenes,  '  le  mourir  heureusement,'  qui  faict  I'hu- 
maine  felicite."  ^^ 

It  may  be  that  stupid  peasants  follow  the  better  way, 
in  bothering  so  little  about  their  latter  end.  Preparation 
for  death  has  tormented  men  more  than  the  experience. 
"Nous  troublons  la  vie  par  le  soing  de  la  mort;  et  la 
mort,  par  le  soing  de  la  vie:  Tune  nous  ennuye;  I'autre 
nous  effraye.  Ce  n'est  pas  contre  la  mort  que  nous  nous 
preparons,  c'est  chose  trop  momentanee;  un  quart  d'heure 
de  passion,  sans  consequance,  sans  nuisance,  ne  merite  pas 
des  praeceptes  particuliers."  ^^ 

Montaigne  was  not  one  utterly  to  abandon  his  earlier 
ways  of  thinking.  Virtue  might  seem  the  better  part  of 
pleasure  to  him  even  in  his  last  years. ^-  He  was  always 
Epicurean.  In  the  essay  De  la  Solitude^  moderate 
Stoicism  and  Epicureanism  mingle  in  a  tempered  Hora- 
tian  view  of  life.  One  needs  the  daily  pleasures  and 
occupations,  but  should  not  entangle  one's  liberty.  "  II 
fault    avoir    femmes,    enfants,    biens,    et    surtout    de    la 

10  III^  11^  a  passage  subsequent  to  the  edition  of  1588. 

11  III,  XII,  about  the  middle  of  the  Essay. 

12  See  a  passage  appearing  only  in  the  1595  edition,  inserted  in  I,  XIX; 
(pp.  iio-iii  in  T.  I.  of  Motheau  and  Jouast's  edition). 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  365 

sante,  qui  peult;  mais  non  pas  s'y  attacher  en  maniere 
que  nostre  heur  en  despende:  il  se  fault  reserver  une 
arrlere  boutique,  toute  nostre,  toute  franche,  en  laquelle 
nous  establlssions  nostre  vraye  liberte  et  principal  re- 
trsjcte  et  solitude." 

Although  a  man  of  ready  social  gifts  as  well  as  In- 
clinations, Montaigne  felt  the  value  of  solitude,  especially 
for  one  who,  having  lived  much  in  the  world,  would  turn 
to  that  fine  Horatian  goal  of  belonging  entirely  to  one- 
self: "  La  plus  grande  chose  du  monde,  c'est  de  scavoir 
estre  a  soy."  It  is  thus  that  one  best  may  husband  the 
pleasures  that  remain, —  the  intellectual  most  assuredly, 
but  also  "  les  commoditez  corporelles,"  which  nature  bids 
us  cherish.  "  J'estime  pareille  injustice  prendre  a  con- 
trecoeur  les  voluptez  naturelles,  que  di  les  prendre  trop 
a  coeur."  One  should  not  belittle  the  element  of  plea- 
sure:—  to  what  other  end  do  we  pursue  the  Muses? 
Whoever  thinks  that  this  Is  to  debase  their  office,  "  ne 
scait  pas,  comme  moy,  combien  vault  le  plaisir,  le  jeu,  et  le 
passetemps."  But  self-content  through  mental  pleasures 
and  bodily  comforts  Is  not  for  any  fool!  Self  may  be 
found  an  empty  refuge.  '*  Retlrez  vous  en  vous;  mais 
preparez  vous  premierement  de  vous  y  recevoir." 

Montaigne  was  also  as  one  quite  unafraid,  ready  to 
confront  any  opinion  with  doubt  and  Inquiry  as  to  Its 
validity.  His  was  no  metaphysical,  but  very  practical 
scepticism  touching  the  value  of  human  judgments. 
Human  ignorance  and  prejudice  impressed  him.  What- 
ever men  are  wont  to  do  and  believe,  they  hold  as  in- 
controvertible and  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  man. 
It  Is  easy  to  show  that  this  opinion  Is  unfounded.  The 
habit  of  approach  through  doubting  Inquiry  became  part 
of  Montaigne's  mentality.  For  a  period  he  cultivated 
scepticism  by  pursuing  the  reasonings  of  Pyrrho  and  other 
well-Instructed  doubters.  His  famous  Apologie  de  Rai- 
mond  Sehond  (II,  XII)  discusses  at  rather  Interminable 
length  the  conflicting  opinions  of  philosophers,  and  the 
variances  and  oppositions  among  human  customs  and 
convictions.     It  concludes  that  human  reason  is  not  to  be 


366  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

relied  on,  nor  can  men  penetrate  the  changing  phantas- 
magoria surrounding  them,  or  attain  stable  truth. 

Should  one  think  of  Montaigne  as  passing  through 
some  sort  of  sceptical  storm  at  any  time?  Did  he  seek 
partial  shelter  from  it  in  some  doctrine  of  practical  prob- 
ability, such  as  he  might  find  in  the  teachings  of  the  later 
Platonic  Academy?  He  is  so  apt  to  utter  whatever  enters 
his  mind,  that  generalizations  as  to  his  more  abiding 
opinions  and  their  sequence  are  hazardous.  One  may  re- 
member his  own  words:  "touts  jugemens  en  gros  sont 
lasches  et  Imparfaicts."  Yet  temperamental  conserva- 
tism, the  habit  of  weighing  probabilities,  and  the  honesty 
of  his  nature  which  knew  its  unfitness  for  the  building 
of  lofty  certitudes,  seem  to  have  continued  to  give  him 
some  practical  reliance  on  the  Instincts  of  his  nature  and 
the  customary  acceptances  of  his  time.  He  would  have 
been  the  last  man  to  claim  consistency  for  his  temperate 
and  partial  convictions.  His  own  reason,  peccable  as  he 
recognized  It  to  be,  should  also  guide  him  always;  restrain 
him,  on  the  one  hand,  from  following  hurtful  Impulses, 
and  on  the  other  from  accepting  stupidly  cruel  practices 
and  credences.  So  he  condemned  judicial  torture,  and  re- 
jected sorcery  and  witchcraft  as  unreasonable  and  un- 
proved. 

That  Montaigne  recognized  himself  as  a  bundle  of 
Inconsistencies,  may  be  read  where  one  will  in  his  Essays, 
for  example  in  the  first  of  the  second  book,  "  De  I'lncon- 
stance  de  nos  actions."  Likewise  his  ideas  and  opinions; 
for  they  were  but  himself.  The  Essays  as  they  expressed 
his  opinions,  were  just  as  much  an  expression  of  himself, 
a  study  of  himself,  a  mirror  of  himself.  He  very  con- 
sciously recognized  them  as  such;  and  declared  many 
times  that  In  them  he  intended  above  all  to  paint  and 
portray  himself,  his  "  humeurs  et  opinions."  Thus  ex- 
pressing himself  for  others,  he  painted  himself  more 
clearly  for  himself,  greatly  to  his  own  benefit  and  In- 
struction. He  said  late  In  life:  "  Je  n'ay  pas  plus  falct 
mon  livre  que  mon  livre  m'a  falct,  llvre  consubstantiel  a 
§on  autheur." 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  367 

He  had  arrived  at  this  idea  and  intention  before  1580, 
when  he  published  the  first  two  books,  and  wrote  his 
memorable  preface  to  the  reader.  That  spoke  the  truth 
in  opening  with  the  words:  "  C'est  icy  un  livre  de  bonne 
foy,  lecteur."  But  it  may  have  had  its  deprecatory  af- 
fectation in  asserting  that  the  book  was  intended  for  the 
use  of  his  relatives  and  friends.  Doubtless  it  spoke  the 
truth  again,  or  meant  to,  in  saying  that  the  author  wished 
to  disclose  himself  without  artifice  or  veil.  And  of  a 
surety  the  truth  and  kernel  of  the  preface  was  in  the 
words:  "  C'est  moy  que  je  peins." 

The  idea  of  portraying  himself  had  taken  form  grad- 
ually with  Montaigne;  and  only  gradually  was  it  clothed 
upon  with  the  further  idea  of  painting  himself  as  the  mir- 
ror of  men.  Autobiography  was  rife  in  the  late  sixteenth 
century.  Montluc,  D'Aubigny,  had  painted,  had  nar- 
rated themselves  in  their  striking  acts  and  sufferings. 
Montaigne's  life  did  not  afford  such.  It  was  always  ab- 
sorbed in  its  daily  incident  and  experience,  its  observa- 
tion and  study,  in  its  penetrating  consideration  of  itself. 
All  this  would  yield  the  material  of  self-portrayal.  At 
first  his  tendency  is  to  give  the  rather  trivial  outer  incident 
or  experience;  then  he  goes  deeper,  painting  the  more 
inner  Montaigne,  consisting  of  thoughts  and  knowledge 
and  opinions.  "  Je  ne  puis  tenir  registre  de  ma  vie  par 
mes  actions  .  .  .  je  le  tiens  par  mes  fantasies."  He  will 
make  this  psychological  portraiture  as  penetrating  and 
complete  as  possible.  "  Ce  ne  sont  mes  gestes  que 
j'escris,  c'est  mon  essence." 

This  mirror  of  self  may  be  turned  upon  the  nature  and 
limitations  of  man:  and  justifiably;  for  I  am  the  measure 
of  all  men.  The  idea  that  the  individual  exempHfies  uni- 
versal human  quality  seems  to  rationalize  itself  through 
one  of  the  few  bits  of  metaphysics  to  be  found  In  the  Es- 
says. Montaigne  uses  the  scholastic  Aristotelian  concep- 
tion of  the  form  or  species  contained  in  each  individual, 
which  is  representative  of  the  universal  genus,  in  this  case, 
man.  Thus  he  argues:  I  present  in  my  book  a  common, 
ordinary  hf e ;  but  it  is  all  one :  the  whole  matter  of  moral 


368  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

philosophy  can  be  hung  on  such  a  life  as  well  as  on  one  of 
richer  substance :  "  chasque  homme  porte  la  forme  entiere 
de  I'humaine  condition."  Montaigne  wrote  these  words 
before  1588,  and  subsequently  attached  this  further  com- 
ment: "  Les  aucteurs  se  communiquent  au  peuple  par 
quelque  marque  special  et  estrangiere;  moy,  le  premier, 
par  mon  estre  iiniversel;  comme  Michel  de  Montaigne, 
non  comme  grammairien,  ou  poete,  ou  jurisconsult." 

Metaphysics  was  not  his  metier;  and  naturally  he  did 
not  keep  meticulously  to  his  conception  of  forme.  Yet 
he  keeps  near  enough  to  it  to  preserve  and  simplify  its 
illustrative  value.  It  becomes,  with  him,  the  abiding 
character  or  nature  within  each  individual.  Those,  says 
he  substantially,  further  on  in  the  same  essay,  who  have 
essayed  the  role  of  reformers  in  my  time,  reform  only  the 
surface  vices;  "  ceulx  de  I'essence,"  they  do  not  trouble. 
Indeed  the  reform  of  these  outer  casual  vices  may  pander 
to  the  satisfaction  of  vices  "  naturels,  consubstantiels  et 
intestins."  No  one  who  will  listen  to  himself  will  fail  to 
discover  "  en  soy  une  forme  sienne,  une  forme  maistresse," 
which  fights  against  the  passions  that  are  contrary  to 
him.  For  myself,  I  am  not  commonly  shaken  by  such 
shocks,  and  find  myself  always  in  my  place,  like  a  heavy 
body.  "  Mes  desbauches  ne  m'emportent  pas  fort  loing." 
The  common  trouble  with  men  is  that  their  retreat  itself 
is  befouled;  the  idea  oi  their  amendment  is  defaced,  their 
penitence  as  faulty  as  their  sin.  "  For  myself,"  continues 
Montaigne  one  or  two  pages  further  on,  "  I  can  con- 
demn and  mislike  ma  forme  universelle,  et  supplier  Dieu 
pour  mon  entiere  reformation,  et  pour  I'excuse  de  ma 
foiblesse  naturelle." 

In  the  course  of  another  thoughtful  essay,  Montaigne 
speaks  of  peculiar  and  retiring  natures  — "  naturels 
particuliers,  retirez  et  internes."  Ma  forme  essentielle^ 
on  the  contrary,  is  communicative  and  social.  The 
phrase  here  means  evidently  Montaigne's  underlying  and 
relatively  abiding  nature.  He  also  uses  the  word  itself, 
nature,  and  in  various  senses,  just  as  we  do.    This  vaguely 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  369 

changeable,  but  reassuring,  thought  underlies  his  later 
more  positive  philosophy  of  life.  He  has  adopted  this 
ancient  maxim,  that  we  cannot  err  in  following  nature, 
and  that  the  "  souverain  precepte,  c'est  de  '  Se  conformer 
a  elle.'  " 

Although  the  illustrative  value  of  the  author  and  his 
knowledge  of  himself  are  universalized  In  these  later 
essays,  the  intimate  self-portrayal  does  not  cease.  Rather 
the  author  and  his  book  —  mon  llvre  et  moy  —  become 
more  Intimately  In  and  of  each  other.  All  the  world  will 
recognize  each  in  the  other.  The  discussion  of  broad 
human  topics  is  ever  and  anon  brought  back  to  the  author 
through  personal  statements,  which  put  Montaigne  again 
visibly  upon  the  stage.  This  Is  all  illustrated  by  the  clos- 
ing essay  of  the  third  book,  upon  Experience.  In  this 
penetrating  consideration  of  Hfe,  if  anywhere,  may  be 
found  the  author's  own  conclusions, —  his  conclusions  as 
to  the  best  way  of  life,  according  to  Nature. 

The  essay  is  intricate.  Beginning  with  reflecting  on 
man's  natural  desire  for  knowledge,  it  notes  the  many 
forms  of  reason,  and  the  like  diversity  of  experience  — 
on  what  shall  one  lay  hold?  Philosophy  is  a  maze; 
another  is  the  multiplicity  of  law:  comment  upon  com- 
ment, adding  to  obscurity;  precedent  upon  precedent,  ob- 
structing justice.  "  I  study  myself  more  than  any  other 
subject:  'tis  my  metaphysics,  'tis  my  physics.  ...  In 
this  monstrous  maze  —  en  cette  unlversite  —  I  let  my- 
self Ignorantly  and  negligently  be  fashioned  on  the  general 
law  of  the  world.  I  shall  know  it  well  enough  when  I 
feel  it;  my  knowledge  will  not  make  it  change  its  course. 
.  .  .  Philosophers  rightly  refer  us  to  Nature's  rules  .  .  . 
but  they  falsify  and  sophisticate  them.  .  .  .  The  more 
simply  one  commits  oneself  to  nature,  the  more  wisely 
he  commits  himself.  .  .  .  From  the  experience  I  have 
of  myself,  I  find  enough  to  make  me  wise,  were  I  a  good 
scholar." 

Through  pages  which  follow,  Montaigne  has  much  to 
say  of  the  physicians'  ignorant  Interference  with  nature's 


370  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ways,  a  favorite  theme  with  him.  As  for  his  own  diet, 
he  has  found  that  whatever  disagrees  with  his  palate, 
disagrees  with  his  body.  "  Je  n'ay  jamais  receu  nuisance 
d'actlon  qui  m'eust  este  bien  plalsante."  Moreover,  as 
to  bodily  Ills, —  "  il  fault  apprendre  a  souffrlr  ce  qu'on 
ne  peult  eviter." 

If  modern  readers  have  found  Montaigne  common- 
place, it  Is  because  they  have  begun  at  the  beginning  and 
not  at  the  end  of  the  Essays.  The  third  book  contains 
the  author's  most  penetrating  and  original  consideration 
of  life;  and  the  concluding  pages  of  Its  last  essay  (on 
which  we  continue  to  draw)  are  of  Montaigne's  very  best. 
The  thought  of  following  nature  underlies  them.  Else- 
where Montaigne  has  shown  Socrates,  antiquity's  most 
complete  sage,  educing  from  his  own  nature  through 
simple  truth,  his  admirable  way  of  life  —  not  like  Cato, 
"  monte  sur  ses  grands  chevaux,"  but  "  d'un  pas  mol  et 
ordinaire,"  delivering  to  us  the  most  useful  discourses, 
and  addressing  himself  either  to  death  or  to  the  thorny 
traverses  of  life.  Now  Montaigne  will  speak  directly, 
and  give  the  results  of  his  own  observation. 

"  Nature  has  seen  to  it  as  a  mother  that  the  actions 
which  she  has  enjoined  for  our  needs,  are  also  pleasur- 
able ;  she  invites  us  to  them  not  only  through  our  reason, 
but  through  our  appetite;  it  is  Injustice  to  corrupt  her 
rules.  When  I  see  Caesar  and  Alexander  in  the  thick 
of  their  enterprises  openly  enjoying  humane  and  corporal 
pleasures,  I  do  not  say  that  they  slacken,  but  strengthen, 
their  minds."  "  We  are  great  fools  "  continues  Mon- 
taigne in  a  passage  inserted  later, 

"  '  He  has  passed  his  life  in  idleness '  we  say :  *  I  have  done  noth- 
ing to-day.'  What!  have  you  not  lived?  That  is  not  only  the 
fundamental,  but  the  noblest  of  your  occupations.  You  would 
have  shown  what  you  could  do,  had  great  affairs  been  given  to 
your  charge?  If  you  have  known  how  to  consider  and  manage 
your  life,  you  have  done  the  greatest  of  all.  Nature  has  no  need 
of  fortune  pour  se  montrer  et  exploicter.  Avez  vous  su  com- 
poser vos  moeurs?  Vous  avez  bien  plus  fait  que  celui  qui  a 
compose  ses  livres.  Avez  vous  su  prendre  du  repos?  Vous  avez 
plus  fait  que  celui  qui  a  pris  des  empires  et  des  villes." 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  371 

Le  grand  et  glorieux  chef  d'oeuvre  de  rhomme,  c'est  vivre  a 
propos, — 

that  Is,  to  live  humanly  as  a  man  should;  all  other  mat- 
ters, reigning,  piling  up  treasure,  are  the  merest  acces- 
sories. I  am  pleased  to  see  a  general,  at  the  foot  of  a 
breach  which  he  is  about  to  attack,  give  himself  over  al- 
together to  his  dinner  with  his  friends;  or  to  see  Brutus, 
with  heaven  and  earth  conspiring  against  him  and  the 
liberty  of  Rome,  snatch  some  hours  of  the  night  to  devote 
to  his  abridgement  of  Polyblus.  It  is  for  little  souls, 
buried  In  the  weight  of  affairs,  to  know  not  how  to  lay 
aside  and  take  them  up  again. 

O  fortes,  pejoraque  pass! 
Mecum  saepe  viri !  nunc  vino  pellite  curas : 
Cras  ingens  iterabimus  aequor." 

This,  with  plenty  of  antique  suggestion,  is  Montaigne, 
either  in  his  own  words,  or  briefly  translated,  even  to  the 
summing  up  of  his  argument  with  his  apt  Horatian  lines. 
And  after  further  illustrations,  he  observes  how  men 
deceive  themselves,  falling  to  recognize  how  much  easier 
are  extremes  than  the  broad  middle  path. 

"  The  greatnesse  of  the  minde  is  not  so  much  to  drawe  up  and 
hale  forward,  as  to  know  how  to  range,  direct  and  circumscribe  it- 
selfe.  It  holdeth  for  great  whatsoever  is  sufficient.  And  sheweth 
her  height  in  loving  meane  things  better  than  eminent.  There  is 
nothing  so  goodly,  so  faire  and  so  lawfull  as  to  play  the  man  well 
and  duely ;  nor  science  so  hard  and  difficult,  as  to  know  how  to  live 
this  life  well.  And  of  all  infirmities  we  have,  the  most  savage  is 
to  despise  our  being."  ^^ 

A  little  further  on,  he  continues :  ''  J'ordonne  a  mon 
ame  de  regarder  et  la  douleur  et  la  volupte,  de  vue 
pareillement  reglee,  et  pareillement  ferme;  mais  gaie- 
ment  Tune,  I'autre  severement.  .  .  .  Le  voir  sainement 
les  blens  tire  apres  sol  le  voir  sainement  les  maux  "  —  a 
sane  view  of  the  good  things  of  life  brings  a  sane  view  of 
the  evil. 

13  Florio's  translation, 


372  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Montaigne  says  he  has  a  way  and  a  vocabulary  of  his 
own;  he  "  passes  the  time  "  when  It  Is  bad,  and  holds  to 
it  when  it  is  pleasant.  Nature  has  put  Into  our  hands  our 
time  so  well  equipped  —  "  garnle  de  telles  circonstances 
et  SI  favorables  " —  that  it  is  our  fault  If  it  hangs  heavy 
or  escapes  us  unused.  There  is  husbandry  in  life's  enjoy- 
ment, especially  in  making  the  most  of  it  when  our  days 
have  become  few. 

He  continues  with  a  subtle  passage  in  which  he  explains 
that  he  does  not  merely  sense  the  sweetness  of  content 
and  prosperity,  as  others  do;  he  intellectuallzes  his  feel- 
ings, associates  his  mind  with  his  sensations,  but  does  not 
entangle  it  in  them.  His  mind  (ame)  amplifies  its  good 
fortune,  and  measures  its  Indebtedness  to  God;  with  its 
conscience  in  repose  and  the  body  fulfilling  natural  and 
pleasant  functions,  it  experiences  a  great  calm.  "  As  for 
me,  then,  I  love  life,  and  cultivate  it  just  as  It  has  pleased 
God  to  bestow  It  on  us,"  including  the  natural  pleasures 
of  the  senses.  ''  J'accepte  de  bon  coeur,  et  reconnaissant, 
ce  que  nature  a  fait  pour  moi.  .  .  .  On  fait  tort  a  ce 
grand  et  tout  puissant  Donneur,  de  refuser  son  don,  Tan- 
nuler  et  desfigurer.  Tout  bon,  il  a  fait  tout  bon:  omnia, 
quae  secundum  naturam  sunt,  aestimatione  digna  sunt. 

*'  Des  opinions  de  la  philosophle,  j'embrasse  plus  vol- 
ontiers  celles  qui  sont  les  plus  solides,  c'est  a  dire  les 
plus  humalnes  et  nostres.  .  .  .  Socrates  .  .  .  prise, 
comme  il  doit,  la  volupte  corporelle;  mais  II  prefere  celle 
de  I'esprit,  comme  ayant  plus  de  force,  de  constancC;  de 
facilite,  de  variete,  de  dignlte.  Cette-ci  ne  va  seulement 
seule,  selon  lui  (11  n'est  pas  si  fantastique) ,  mais  seule- 
ment premiere;  pour  lui,  la  temperance  est  moderatrix, 
non  adversaire  des  voluptes.  Nature  est  un  doux  guide, 
mais  non  pas  plus  doux  que  prudent  et  juste."  Montaigne 
would  follow  her  track,  simply  and  without  sophistry,  and 
make  no  divorce  among  the  acts  which  her  harrhony  has 
joined  together.  It  is  folly  to  praise  the  soul  and  despise 
the  body;  they  are  a  joint  gift  from  God.  Rarely  are 
men's  fantasies  worth  a  good  ragout, —  except  for  "  ces 
^mes  venerables  elevees  par  ardeur  de  devotion  et  re- 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  373 

ligion  a  une  constante  .  .  .  meditation  des  choses  divines 
.  .  .  c'est  une  etude  privilege.  Entre  nous,  ce  sont  choses 
que  j'al  toujours  vues  de  singulier  accord:  les  opinions 
supercelestes  et  les  moeurs  souterraines." 

So  Montaigne  ends  his  paragraph  with  a  note  of  sar- 
casm, which  he  does  not  leave  unsounded  as  he  closes  his 
essay.  He  would  show  that  there  is  time  to  spare  for 
everything.  "  Die  zeit  ist  unendlich  lang,"  Goethe  will 
say  after  him.  It  is  folly  to  try  to  lift  oneself  out  of 
human  nature.  "  Ces  humeurs  transcendantes  m'effrai- 
ent,  comme  les  lieux  hautains  et  inaccessibles.  .  .  . 
C'est  une  absolue  perfection,  et  comme  divine,  de  savoir 
jouir  loyalement  de  son  etre.  Nous  cherchons  d'autres 
conditions,  pour  n'entendre  [from  not  understanding] 
I'usage  des  notres,  et  sortons  hors  de  nous  pour  ne 
savoir  [from  not  knowing]  quel  il  y  fait  " —  even  when 
mounted  on  stilts  we  still  walk  upon  our  legs,  and  though 
placed  on  the  highest  throne  in  all  the  world,  we  sit  upon 
what  nature  has  given  us.  "  Les  plus  belles  vies  sont, 
a  mon  gre,  celles  qui  se  rangent  au  modele  commun  et 
humain,  avec  ordre,  mais  sans  miracle,  sans  extravagance. 
Or,  la  vieillesse  a  un  peu  besoin  d'etre  traitee  plus  tendre- 
ment.  Recommandons-la  a  ce  Dieu  protecteur  de  sante 
et  de  sagesse,  mais  gaie  et  sociale : 

Frui  paratis  et  valido  mihi, 
Latoe,  dones,  et,  precor,  Integra 
Cum  mente;  nee  turpem  senectam 
Degere,  nee  cithara  carentem. 

So  he  ends  with  a  sentiment  of  Socrates  and  a  verse 
from  Horace. 

Of  all  sixteenth  century  Frenchmen, —  except  Henry 
IV!  —  Montaigne  is  still  the  most  universally  read  or 
considered,  and  written  about.  In  his  self-deprecation, 
he  would  not  have  claimed  membership  in  the  company 
of  "  les  belles  ames  .  .  .  ames  universelles,  ouvertes,  et 
prestes  a  tout;  si  non  instruictes,  au  moins  instruisables." 
In  contrast  with  such  he  points  to  his  own  ignorance  and 
ineptitude;  and  somewhat  further  on  in  this  essay   (II, 


374  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

XVII),  suggests  that  his  constant  preoccupation  with 
the  antique  temper,  and  those  "  riches  ames  du  temps 
passe,"  disgusts  him  with  himself  and  his  contemporaries. 
Yet  there  he  is,  in  fact,  if  not  the  most  "  instruict,"  at  all 
events  the  most  "  instruisable  "  mind  of  his  epoch.  How 
ceaseless  has  been  his  influence,  how  very  close  and  per- 
sonal with  so  many  men!  Reading  Bacon's  Essays,  we 
see  the  mark  of  Montaigne;  stepping  on  briskly  through 
the  centuries,  we  find  our  own  Emerson  soaked  with  his 
manner. 

The  purpose  of  these  few  pages  has  been  to  distinguish 
his  place  in  the  intellectual  development  of  sixteenth  cen- 
tury France.  Incidents  and  characteristic  details  of  his 
thought  and  disposition  have  been  passed  over.  No  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  give  a  close  and  intimate  picture 
of  one  who  has  proved  just  as  curiously  interesting  to 
later  generations  as  he  was  to  himself.  One  may  well 
refrain  from  attempting  that  which  has  been  essayed 
time  and  again,  and  has  been  achieved  by  only  one  man, 
Montaigne  himself.  None  can  rival  Montaigne  in 
drawing  Montaigne.  It  is  irksome  to  string  excerpt  upon 
excerpt  from  one  so  well  known;  and  to  restate  him  is 
to  lose  his  flavor. 

Of  course  he  is  not  always  the  same  Montaigne;  in 
which  respect  he  is  akin  to  all  of  us.  We  recognize  him 
in  his  universal  aspect,  as  a  type  of  the  wingless  intelli- 
gence. His  is  a  constant  analytical  consideration  of  life, 
with  the  habit  of  accepting  what  seemed  the  better  part  — 
but  which  was  not  quite  the  best  I  He  even  recognized 
some  things  (like  the  most  honorable  service  of  the  pub- 
lic) as  beyond  his  energies.  If  the  complete  art  of  life, 
life's  full  content  and  wisdom,  lies  in  action  as  well  as 
thought,  Montaigne  did  not  achieve  it  wholly. 

Undoubtedly  good  reason  for  the  impression  which  he 
has  made  upon  all  the  generations  after  him,  lies  in  the 
independence  and  originality  of  his  consideration  of  life, 
unequalled,  even  unrivalled,  in  his  time.  This  joins  with 
the  fact  that  he  was  such  a  wonderful  writer,  so  easy,  so 
affable,  so  picturesque.     Hence  an  individuality,  nay  a 


AMYOT  AND  MONTAIGNE  375 

personality,  Is  presented  in  a  book,  engagingly,  instruc- 
tively, and  In  such  way  as  to  make  plain  for  every  reader 
the  practical  applicable  lessons  of  its  experiences  and 
opinions.  The  Essays  of  Montaigne  have  been  a  peren- 
nial source  of  the  wisdom  of  life.  Their  persuasive 
reason  and  convincing  charm  helped  to  Impress  a  rational 
urbanity  upon  French  methods  of  expression.  The  Es- 
says became  part  of  the  French  mind,  a  formative  element 
in  the  French  genius. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

RAMUS 

Before  speaking  of  the  phase  of  sixteenth  century  prog- 
ress and  expression  exemplified  in  the  reformed  religion 
of  Calvin,  a  brief  reference  should  be  made  to  the 
work  of  intellectual  and  educational  reform  attempted 
by  a  certain  independent  and  combative  Pierre  de  la 
Ramee,  commonly  called  Ramus/  He  also  belonged  to 
the  reformed  rehgion,  and  sealed  his  faith,  willy  nilly, 
in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's.  An  Elizabethan 
playwright  made  his  death  the  subject  of  a  tragedy. 

His  is  the  story  of  one  born  in  squalor,  with  an  un- 
quenchable desire  for  knowledge.  At  an  incredible  early 
age,  he  went  in  search  of  it  in  Paris,  and  continued 
resolute  (this  child!),  and  at  the  alleged  age  of  twelve, 
in  the  year  1527,  he  became  the  servant  of  a  rich  student 
at  the  college  of  Navarre.  He  tried  to  work  for  his 
master  by  day  and  study  for  himself  at  night,  till  his 
eyes  gave  way.  His  spirit  from  the  first  was  revolution- 
ary. One  of  his  early  exasperations  was  at  the  current 
method  of  teaching  logic  and  practicing  it  as  a  boisterous 
game  of  tripping  up.  He  realized  the  uselessness  of  his 
years  devoted  to  Aristotelian  scholasticism,  especially  to 
the  study  of  the  Organon.  His  good  angel  led  him  to 
Plato,  and  he  became  fascinated  with  the  Socratic  method 
of  reaching  and  testing  truth.  It  occurred  to  him  to 
apply  it  to  the  scholastic  Aristotelian  dialectic.  With 
what  result  he  made  manifest  when,-  in  1536,  he  sus- 
tained for  an  academic  day  against  all  comers  the  argu- 
ment of  his  Master  of  Arts  thesis  Quaecumque  ah 
Aristotele  dicta  essent,  commentitia  esse,  that  the  works 

1  For  Ramus,  see  Charles  Waddington,  Ramus,  sa  a/ie,  ses  ecr'its  etc. 
(Paris,  1855),  (from  whom  I  have  chiefly  drawn),  F.  P.  Graves,  Peter 
Ramus  and  the  Educational  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century  (New 
York,  1912). 

376 


RAMUS  377 

ascribed  to  Aristotle  were  not  his,  and  were,  moreover, 
full  of  error.  This  was  to  attack  the  scaffolding,  if  not 
the  entire  structure,  of  theology;  and  the  noise  of  the 
conflict  echoed  through  the  universities,  as  far  as  Italy. 

Although  looked  upon  askance  by  the  authorities, 
Ramus  obtained  an  opportunity  to  teach  in  one  of  the  col- 
leges. Before  long  his  lecture  room  was  thronged,  and 
to  the  end  of  his  career  he  continued  the  most  popular 
and  effective  of  university  lecturers.  A  classical  scholar 
and  lover  of  letters,  French  as  well  as  classical,  he  intro- 
duced into  his  lectures  apt  illustrations  from  literature 
and  life.  His  mind  was  throbbing  with  desire  to  cast 
off  the  futilities  of  his  education,  and  in  the  place  of  smoke 
and  noise,  gain  the  verities  and  realities  of  knowledge. 
He  pursued  this  aim  In  all  branches  of  education,  branches 
of  educational  reform,  as  they  became  with  him. 

In  1543  he  published  an  elementary  text  book  of  logic, 
written  in  clear  and  excellent  Latin,  Dialecticae  parti- 
tiones,  and  the  same  year  his  Aristotelicae  Animadver- 
siones,  a  work  of  a  different  sort.  In  that,  with  a  violence 
afterward  regretted,  he  accused  Aristotle  of  sophistry, 
and  reviled  his  followers  for  their  barbaric  Latin  and 
sterile  disputations.  Naturally  this  polemic  brought 
trouble  to  its  author.  The  Sorbonne  held  Aristotle  to 
be  the  orthodox  philosopher  par  excellence;  his  philosophy 
was  inseparably  interlaced  with  the  saving  dogmas  of 
the  Church.  To  attack  one  was  to  question  the  other. 
The  Sorbonne  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  in  a  state  of 
such  excited  conservatism,  that  the  questioning  of  any 
accepted  way  of  thinking,  or  the  opening  of  any  new 
avenue  of  knowledge,  appeared  fraught  with  peril;  a 
frame  of  mind  not  confined  either  to  the  Sorbonne  or 
the  sixteenth  century.  Those  sixteenth  century  theolo- 
gians were  prone  to  Impute  "  Lutheranism  "  or  like  bane- 
ful tendencies  (often  with  reason)  to  all  innovating 
scholars.  They  were  more  sensitive  as  to  Aristotle  than 
Thomas  Aquinas  or  Albertus  Magnus  had  been,  who  could 
admit  that  he  was  but  a  man,  and  might  err.  In  the  case 
of  Ramus,  the  Sorbonne  was  right;  for  the  same  Impulse 


378  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

for  verity  which  drove  him  against  logical  conventions, 
alienated  him  from  the  Church,  along  with  the  better 
part  of  contemporary  French  scholarship. 

The  heads  of  the  University  were  aroused.  Process 
was  Instituted  against  the  books,  and  against  their  author 
for  corrupting  the  youth  and  disrupting  authority.  Such 
was  the  noise  that  Francis  himself  ordered  the  matter 
to  be  argued  before  his  royal  self  and  five  arbiters,  two 
appointed  by  each  of  the  parties,  and  one  by  the  King. 
The  topics  were  as  formal  and  academic  as  those  disputed 
on  about  the  year  looo  before  the  Emperor  Otto  II,  by 
Gerbert,  the  future  pope,  and  his  German  opponent 
Otrlc.^  Ramus  and  his  antagonist,  each  provided  with  a 
Greek  Aristotle,  disputed  as  to  the  object  and  divisions  of 
logic,  and  whether  a  treatise  on  dialectic  should  start 
from  a  definition  of  the  subject.  The  argument  wound 
on,  and  Ramus  finally  obtained  such  damaging  admis- 
sions from  his  enemy  and  had  him  so  cleverly  on  the  hip, 
that  the  three  hostile  arbitrators  adjourned  the  court, 
and  ordered  the  affair  reargued  from  the  beginning,  with 
those  admissions  nullified.  Ramus  objected,  but  the  three, 
having  the  King's  authority  behind  them,  condemned  the 
book,  Ramus's  two  friends  registering  their  protest  In 
favor  of  the  freedom  of  philosophical  discussion!  The 
King  issued  a  long  sentence  of  condemnation,  declaring 
that  the  said  Ramus  had  been  found  temeraire^  arrogant 
et  impudent  d! avoir  reprouvue  et  condamne  le  train  et  art 
de  logicque  receu  de  toutes  nations.^  All  men  were  for- 
bidden to  buy  or  sell  or  read  either  of  the  books,  and  the 
university  authorities  made  an  orgie  of  bonfires  with 
them,  regretting  only  that  the  author  had  not  been  con- 
demned to  the  galleys. 

Thus  the  aroused  established  system  defended  Itself 
against  Innovation.  But  in  a  year  or  two,  a  pestilence 
having  in  the  meanwhile  scattered  the  university,  one 
of  Its  colleges,  the  College  de  Presles,  Invited  the  able 
innovator  to  re-establish  its  membership  and  add  to  its 

2  See  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  I,  p.  291,  sqq. 

3  The  whole  text  is  given  in  Waddington,  Ramus,  pp.  49-52. 


RAMUS  379 

prestige.  Ramus  became  Its  head,  and  also  gained  the 
protection  of  the  new  King,  Henry  II,  through  the  favor 
of  the  powerful  Cardinal  of  Guise  (later  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine)  who  had  been  a  student  with  him  at  the  col- 
lege of  Navarre.  At  the  instance  of  this  mighty  friend  — 
who  twenty  years  afterwards  threw  Ramus  to  the 
assassins  —  the  King  founded  a  new  Royal  Lectureship 
of  eloquence  and  philosophy,  where  Ramus  would  be 
safe  from  the  persecution  of  his  enemies  in  the  University. 
But  he  was  never  to  be  free  from  their  persecution,  nor 
did  he  ever  cease  attacking  current  methods  of  university 
education,  until  he  fell  by  the  swords  of  assassins  directed 
against  him  probably  by  his  university  colleagues. 

We  turn  from  the  tale  of  these  old  rancors  (a  long 
one  in  the  case  of  Ramus),  to  the  labors  of  this  eager 
and  restless  man,  which  were  spent  in  simplifying  the  old 
methods,  naturalizing  and  animating  them,  restating  the 
educational  matter,  discarding  the  superfluous  and  absurd, 
and  adding,  as  it  were,  a  new-found  quality  of  life.  He 
fought  to  free  education  from  vicious  jugglery,  to  make 
it  correspond  with  human  nature  and  aid  human  accom- 
plishment. In  the  reform  of  educational  methods  he 
seems  to  see  ever  and  anon,  a  panacea  for  ignorance.  In 
this  he  falls  in  with  Roger  Bacon  long  before  him,  and 
with  Francis  Bacon  too,  and  others  who  imagined  that 
all  knowledge  could  be  quickly  gained  through  proper 
methods  of  approach.  He  had  the  dream  that  if  men 
could  but  freely  follow  the  light  of  reason,  a  century 
might  suffice  to  bring  the  sciences  to  their  goal.'* 

Ramus's  chief  grievance  against  Aristotle  was  that  his 
logical  system  did  not  follow  the  natural  Inborn  logic  of 
the  human  mind.  In  true  dialectic,  as  In  other  practical 
sciences,  there  Is  first  the  faculty  of  reason;  next,  the  pre- 
cepts for  its  right  employment;  and  finally  the  practice 
through  which  precepts  become  habits,  part  of  the  normal 
play  of  the  reasoning  faculty.  Conversely,  one  will  ob- 
serve that  the  practice  of  dialectic  pre-supposes  the  art 
or  science  consisting  in  a  body  of  precepts   which,  in  turn, 

^Scholae  in  liberales  artes,  cited  by  Waddington,  Ramus,  p.  343. 


38o  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

pre-suppose  the  reasoning  faculty  and  the  nature  of  rea- 
son, of  which  the  body  of  precepts  should  be  the  accord- 
ant expression.  Practice  must  conform  to  precept,  and 
precept  to  the  nature  of  that  of  which  it  is  the  precept  or 
expression. 

The  end  of  dialectic  is  its  practice  or  exercise  in  dis- 
course, in  accordance  with  right  precepts,  themselves  in 
harmony  with  reason  itself.  These  precepts  are  to  be 
discovered  from  the  practice  of  the  best  and  most  illum- 
inating writers  and  philosophers  of  Rome  and  Greece, 
who  exemplified  the  art  of  composing,  of  arguing  and 
refuting,  in  their  works.  From  their  works  we  deduce 
the  dialectical  and  rhetorical  precepts,  which  have,  in 
turn,  proceeded  from  the  rational  natures  of  their  great 
authors.  With  Ramus,  dialectic  is  a  close  twin  to  rhetoric; 
and  the  two  rest  in  scholarship  and  humanism,  the  study 
and  love  of  classical  letters.  He  makes  clear  that  the 
true  practice  of  this  art  must  be  real  and  living,  service- 
able in  the  affairs  of  life,  in  literature,  and  in  the  pursuit 
of  truth.  Let  no  fool  think  to  attain  it  through  the 
word  play  of  the  schools !  And  he  illustrates  his  dialectic 
by  a  multitude  of  examples  drawn  from  the  best  works  of 
literature. 

It  was  in  this  revivifying  of  dialectic,  and  then  of 
other  branches  of  education,  that  Ramus  was  creative. 
First,  in  dialectic,  he  attacked  the  matter  truculently, 
shook  it  up,  and  worked  it  over  resolutely,  though  not 
independently.  For,  of  course,  he  could  not  free  himself 
from  Aristotle's  system.  His  technical  modifications  were 
not  as  radical  as  perhaps  he  imagined.^  His  rather  vain- 
glorious and  self-conscious  boldness  made  him  attribute 
undue  novelty  to  his  results.  Great  had  been  his  travail, 
as  in  1555  he  writes  in  the  preface  to  his  DiaJectique 
addressed  to  his  Maecenas,  Cardinal  Charles  of  Lor- 
raine. But  it  was  worth  the  pains  "  to  have  dared 
enter  the  lists  against  all  the  philosophers  who  ever  were, 
in  order  to  wrest  from  them  the  prize  of  dialectic  which 

^  Yet  a  fairly  numerous  school  in  various  countries  called  themselves 
Ramists  and  professed  to  follow  the  precepts  and  practice  of  the  master. 


RAMUS  381 

they  had  won  by  their  great  genius  and  diligence,  and  the 
prescription  and  judgment  of  centuries  had  confirmed  to 
them." « 

We  turn  to  his  well  hated  reforms  in  other  fields.  In 
a  Remonstrance  an  conseil  prive,'^  in  1567,  against  the 
appointment  of  his  arch  enemy  Charpentier  to  a  chair 
of  mathematics,  Ramus  quotes  his  enemy's  invective 
against  himself,  "  que  c'est  un  homme  violent,  importun, 
imperieux,  qu'il  avoit  renverse  la  grammaire,  rhetorique, 
logique,  philosophic,  mathematique,  qu'il  avoit  faict  tout 
un  monde  nouveau."  *'  In  which,  gentlemen,"  says 
Ramus,  "  he  spoke  some  truth."  But  Socrates  had  small 
repute  at  Athens  till  the  Oracle  declared  him  the  wisest 
of  men.  "  And  one  part  of  his  admirable  wisdom  was 
his  contention  that  the  liberal  arts  should  be  kept  related 
to  human  life,  and  help  men  to  think  and  act  well;  but 
the  schools  teach  subtilties  useless  in  practice.   .   .   . 

"  Gentlemen,  when  I  came  to  Paris,  I  fell  among  the 
subtilties  of  the  sophists,  and  they  taught  me  the  liberal 
arts  through  questions  and  disputlngs,  without  showing 
me  any  other  advantage  or  use.  When  I  had  graduated 
as  master  of  arts,  I  .  .  .  decided  that  these  disputes  had 
brought  me  nothing  but  loss  of  time.  Dismayed  by  this 
thought,  led  by  some  good  angel,  I  chanced  on  Xenophon 
and  then  on  Plato,  and  learned  to  know  the  Socratic 
philosophy." 

Then  when  he  had  learned  from  this  how  silly  the 
University  professors  were,  to  think  to  turn  the  liberal 
arts  into  sophistries,  he  spoke  up  and  p^ot  himself  in 
trouble, —  as  has  already  been  shown.  From  which  he 
was  delivered  by  the  good  King  Henry,  and  given  a  place 
among  the  royal  lecturers. 

"  Ainsi  doncques  estant  delivre,  estant  invite  par  pris  et  honneur 
royal,  je  me  mis  en  tout  diligence  de  traicter  les  disciplines  a  la 
socratique,  en  cherchant  et  demonstrant  I'usage,  en  retranchant  les 
superfluitez  des  regies  et  preceptes.     En  ceste  laborleuse  et  penible 

6  Given  by  Waddington,  Ramus,  pp.  401-407  —  a  characteristic  piece  of 
writing. 

'^  Printed  in  Waddington,  Ramus,  pp.  411-417. 


382  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

contention  d'estude,  j'ay  travaille  jour  et  nuict  a  enseigner  et  met- 
tre  en  meilleur  ordre  la  grammaire  grecque,  latine,  frangoise,  la 
rhetorique  et  surtout  la  logique,  instrument  singulier  a  manier  et 
traicter  tous  discours.  ..." 

Next  he  took  up  In  order  arithmetic  and  geometry,  In 
which  he  Is  at  present  occupied. 

This  was  a  truthful  picture  of  his  labors.  When  the 
favor  of  King  Henry  and  the  Cardinal  in  155 1  made  him 
a  royal  lecturer,  In  what  was  to  be  the  College  de  France, 
he  recognized  as  his  the  task  of  universal  reform.  The 
eyes  of  Paris  were  upon  him.  The  youth  thronged  to  his 
lectures,  and  he  felt  the  responsibilities  of  a  public  man. 
His  lectures  on  the  classics,  especially  Cicero,  were  very 
popular.  They  were  meant  to  Illustrate  his  Instruction 
In  the  seven  liberal  arts.  These  he  taught  with  constant 
endeavor  to  keep  their  topics  In  correspondence  with  the 
practical  needs  of  life  and  literature.  He  himself  wrote 
grammars,  of  the  Latin,  Greek  and  French  languages. 
In  rhetoric  he  took  up  the  warfare  against  the  fashion  of 
slavishly  Imitating  Cicero  or  following  QuIntUIan.  Great 
was  the  fracas;  Rabelais  burlesqued  It;  Joachim  du  Bel- 
lay  also  satirized  It.  But  Ramus  kept  sturdily  on  in 
the  endeavor  to  apply  to  all  the  liberal  arts  the  principles 
of  his  natural  and  living  dialectic;  so  as  the  better  to 
make  education  conform  to  life.  To  this  end  also  he 
translated  Euclid,  and  wrote  an  arithmetic  and  a  geom- 
etry, which  like  his  other  school  books  passed  through 
numerous  editions,  and  exerted  Influence  In  Germany  and 
England  as  well  as  France.  He  was  an  ardent  mathe- 
matician, and  his  text-books  were  better  and  clearer  than 
those  they  superseded. 

Ramus  thought  for  himself  In  every  field  of  education, 
testing  all  things  boldly,  discarding  the  useless,  and  re- 
forming each  topic  along  the  lines  of  common  sense. 
Strenuously  In  all  things  he  endeavored  to  follow  the 
light  of  his  own  reason.  Three  years  before  his  death  he 
wrote  In  a  preface  to  his  Scolae  in  liberates  artes: 

"  Someone   has  written   recently   that   Ramus   teaches    Plato's 


RAMUS  383 

method,  and  condemns  that  of  Aristotle.  The  author,  otherwise 
well  instructed,  has  never  read  the  Logic  of  Ramus;  for  there  he 
would  have  seen  it  held  that  there  is  but  one  method,  which  was 
that  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  as  well  as  Hippocrates  and  Galen. 
.  .  .  The  same  is  found  in  Virgil  and  in  Cicero,  in  Homer  and 
in  Demosthenes;  it  presides  over  mathematics,  philosophy,  and 
over  the  judgments  and  conduct  of  all  men;  it  is  not  the  invention 
of  Aristotle  or  Ramus." 

This  was  the  method  of  man's  Inborn  reason,  which 
more  men  seek  than  find,  and  still  more,  perhaps,  think 
they  possess.  With  Ramus  the  struggle  for  it  had  been 
attainment.  His  real  life's  work,  which  told  upon  his 
world,  lay  In  his  endeavor  to  apply  In  every  field  of  knowl- 
edge this  method  divinely  Implanted  In  man,  and  man 
alone,  to  which,  as  he  thought,  all  true  education,  all 
valid  knowledge,  all  human  progress,  must  conform. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

JOHN    CALVIN 

I.  Humanist  Reformers 

II.  Calvin's  Formative  Years 

III.  The  Work  at  Geneva 

IV.  The  ''  Christian  Institute  " 

I 

Reform  of  the  generally  accepted  and  practised  Roman 
Catholic  religion  was  certain  to  issue  from  the  human 
growth  and  enlightenment  which  made  some  halting 
progress  in  France  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  in  the 
sixteenth  advanced  with  broader  energy.  The  Reform 
began  almost  unconsciously  as  a  concomitant  of  the  newly 
stimulated  scholarship,  which  was  winning  a  clearer  Im- 
pression of  the  past.  Men  were  studying  the  Latin 
classics  with  the  Increasing  Insight  of  a  larger  knowledge, 
and  were  attempting  Greek  and  Hebrew.  The  em- 
boldened and  deeply  religious  French  scholarship  naturally 
addressed  Itself  to  a  like  examination  of  the  Bible,  and 
began  to  compare  what  they  found  there  with  current 
ecclesiastical  doctrines.  This  could  not  fail  to  show  the 
lack  of  Scriptural  authority  for  many  teachings  of  the 
Church,  as  well  as  for  much  In  Its  general  complexion. 
If  these  awakening  eyes  perceived  the  Church  to  rest 
upon  tradition  and  doctrine  In  part  at  least  unsanctioned 
by  Scripture,  they  would  also  see  it  standing  upon  prac- 
tices which  Scripture  Implicitly  or  explicitly  condemned. 
Moreover,  a  new  study  of  the  Scriptures  not  improbably 
would  lead  to  a  constructive  understanding  of  the  Faith 
different  from  what  the  Church  had  taught  for  some 
centuries. 

Lefevre  of  Staples,  a  coast  town  of  PIcardy,  was  the 
chief  Interpreter  of  these  tentative  beginnings  of  Reform, 

384 


JOHN  CALVIN  385 

springing  up  in  truth-seeking  natures  and  issuing  appar- 
ently from  the  habit  of  scholarly  research.  His  was  a 
gentle,  earnestly  religious,  nature  which  was  impelled  to 
controversy  by  the  love  of  truth.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  almost  a  centenarian  when  he  died  in  1536,  and  it 
is  as  an  old  man,  at  the  end  of  a  life  of  humane  studies, 
that  he  comes  forward  as  the  exponent  of  a  better  truth 
in  certain  matters  of  the  Faith.  If  he  hoped  to  correct 
some  baseless  teachings,  he  had  no  thought  of  separation 
from  the  established  church  which  held  them.  His  mind 
was  given  to  sacred  study  some  time  before  1509,  when 
he  published,  in  spite  of  his  very  imperfect  knowledge  of 
Greek  and  Hebrew,  his  Ouintuplex  Psalterium,  saying  in 
the  preface :  "  For  a  long  time  I  have  been  devoted  to 
humane  studies  and  have  scarcely  tasted  of  the  studies 
which  are  divine,  august,  and  not  to  be  rashly  approached. 
But  from  afar  so  brilliant  a  light  has  already  broken  on 
my  sight  that  human  learning  seems  darkness,  compared 
with  the  sacred  studies,  while  these  seem  to  me  to  exhale 
a  perfume  unequalled  for  sweetness  by  anything  on 
earth."  ^ 

The  inchoate  doctrinal  reform  that  was  in  him  becomes 
articulate  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
appearing  in  15 12.  He  puts  the  Scriptures  as  the  one 
sure  foundation  of  our  religion.  The  doctrine  of  Christ 
is  found  in  them;  let  us  not  follow  the  precepts  and 
dogmas  of  men  which  have  no  foundation  in  the  light  from 
on  high. 

"  There  are  men  to-day,"  says  he,  "  who  teach  the  people  a 
silly  piety  instead  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  What  profits  it  to 
observe  new  fasts  and  pay  tithes?  Why  should  I  rely  on  prayers 
set  by  unknown  men,  and  omit  apostolic  injunctions?  Why  die  in 
a  monk's  frock,  when  one  has  all  his  life  worn  other  clothes? 
Nothing  of  this  sort  is  commanded  by  Christ.  .  .  .  The  rest  per- 
haps is  superstitious  rather  than  religious.  .  .  .  Let  us  cling  to 
Christ  alone,  and  to  the  apostolic  teaching.  That  is  enough,  and  is 
the  chief  thing  for  salvation." 

He  states  the  principle  of  justification  by  faith: 

^  Given  by  E.  Doumergue,  Jean  Calvin,  etc.,  I.,  p.  8i   (Lausanne,  1899). 


386  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

"  It  is  most  profane  to  speak  of  the  merit  of  works,  especially  in 
the  face  of  God.  For  a  merit  does  not  seem  to  ask  a  favor,  but  to 
demand  what  is  due.  To  ascribe  a  merit  to  works  is  almost  to 
hold  the  opinion  of  those  who  believe  that  we  can  be  justified  by 
works,  the  error  for  which  the  Jews  are  condemned.  Let  us  keep 
silence  over  the  merit  of  our  works,  which  is  little  or  nothing;  and 
let  us  celebrate  the  grace  of  God  which  is  all.  One  can  attribute 
merit  only  to  Christ,  who  has  merited  all  for  us ;  but,  for  ourselves, 
let  us  confess  that  we  have  no  merit  before  God,  and  hope  in  His 
grace."  Again:  "Wilt  thou  say,  has  ever  anyone  been  justified 
without  the  works  of  the  law,  written  or  natural?  Yes,  innumer- 
able people."  ^ 

Works  alone  will  justify  no  one.  Neither  will  mere 
belief;  —  the  devils  believe.  God  alone  justifies.  Evi- 
dently Lefevre  has  not  elaborated  his  position.  But  he 
makes  other  steps  in  the  direction  of  that  Reform  which 
was  to  acquire  the  name  of  Lutheran,  Calvlnlst,  Protes- 
tant. For  him  the  waters  of  baptism  are  losing  their 
magic  quality,  the  Eucharist  Is  ceasing  to  be  a  priest-made 
sacrifice,  and  becoming  a  memorial;  though  he  does  not 
reject  the  "  real  presence."  He  disparages  fasts,  and 
priestly  celibacy  leading  to  loose  Incontinence,  and  objects 
to  the  Latin  liturgy,  which  Is  not  understood  by  the  laity 
who  take  part  In  Its  prayers. 

Lefevre  plants  himself  upon  the  Bible  against  which 
no  human  doctrinal  authority,  no  custom  or  tradition  of 
the  Church,  can  prevail.  He  set  to  work  upon  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Vulgate  Into  French.  This  brought  him 
Into  conflict  with  the  Sorbonne  (the  theological  faculty  of 
the  university)  who  would  not  have  the  Bible  thus  pre- 
sented to  the  people.  His  antagonist  was  the  fanatical 
Beda,  the  head  of  the  college  of  Montalgu.  Incidentally 
a  bitter  dispute  arose  over  the  "  three  Maries,"  as  Le- 
fevre would  prove  them  to  be  from  Scripture,  one  and 
the  same  as  the  Church  held  them  to  be,  and  the  Sorbonne 
again  officially  affirmed;  —  another  Instance  of  ecclesiastic 
fearfulness  lest  light  be  let  in  on  some  of  the  untenable 
positions  of  the  Church.  Francis,  Influenced  by  his  sister 
Marguerite,  kept  Lefevre   from  prison   and   the   stake. 

2  Passages  given  in  Doumergue,  o.  c.  pp.  81-83. 


"       JOHN  CALVIN  387 

But  Paris  was  no  longer  safe  from  him  and  he  eventually 
closed  his  eyes  at  Nerac,  In  Aquitaine,  protected  and  com- 
forted by  Marguerite.  His  influence  had  been  consider- 
able; a  number  of  able  men  had  been  his  disciples,  some 
of  whom  saw  fit  later  to  purge  themselves  of  their  Re- 
form. But  among  them  was  Guillaume  Farel,  the  fiery 
exhorter  of  Calvin. 

One  may  assume  that  a  University  whose  most  power- 
ful faculty  fanatically  opposed  the  acceptance  of  anything 
out  of  harmony  with  church  tradition,  would  in  other 
matters  offer  but  an  inferior  and  hide-bound  instruction. 
All  evidence  shows  this  to  have  been  the  fact  at  Paris  in 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  also  clear 
that  the  efforts  to  improve  instruction  came  from  men  who 
were  inclined  to  the  Reform  or  known  to  be  adherents  of 
it.  Bude  and  Ramus  are  examples.  Mathurin  Cordier 
was  another.  He  had  been  converted  in  1528  by  his 
friend  Robert  Estienne,  and  was  Calvin's  first  teacher  at 
Paris.  Known  as  the  author  of  certain  repeatedly  printed 
Colloquies^  he  taught  in  Calvin's  academy  at  Geneva, 
and  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  in  1564,  the  same  year 
with  his  great  pupil. 

Besides  these  pronounced  reformers,  both  in  educa- 
tion and  religion,  there  were  scholars,  poets,  ecclesiastics, 
men  of  the  world,  who  approved  of  the  Reform,  but  fled 
from  persecution,  or  escaped  it  by  restraint  of  speech  or, 
sometimes,  by  recantation.  Their  protector  was  the 
Platonically  inclined  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  who  de- 
clared (a  propos  of  evangelical  preaching)  that  no  one 
should  fear  to  hear  the  word  of  God.  Among  them  was 
Briconnet,  bishop  of  Meaux,  who  loved  Plato  and  advo- 
cated the  Reform,  till  he  was  frio;htened  back  from  it;  and 
Clichtove,  a  pupil  of  Lefevre,  who  also  recanted.  There 
was  Clement  Marot,  court-poet  and  translator  of  the 
Psalms;  and  Rabelais,  greatest  of  all.  Marot  shows  a 
clear,  if  moderately  instructed,  intelligence  alienated  by 
the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  Church.  Rabelais's  capa- 
cious mind,  filled  with  the  best  learning  of  the  time, 
despised  the   silly  stories   of  the   theologastres  —  belly 


388  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

theologians  —  of  the  Sorbonne,  vain  talkers,  "  sophistes 
sorbillans,  sorbonagres,  sorbonigenes  "  and  so  forth;  and 
just  as  vehemently  he  despised  the  futile  pedantry  of  the 
education  which  his  youth  had  been  subjected  to.  Such 
a  man,  of  course,  and  Marot  too,  would  be  repelled  by  the 
later  ways  of  the  Reform  under  Calvin's  dominance. 
For  they  combined  love  of  the  world  and  love  of  letters, 
with  some  subordinated  rational  desire  for  a  religion  freed 
from  palpable  untruth  and  follies. 

The  reform  of  education  as  well  as  the  Reformed  re- 
ligion represented  intellectual  advance.  It  meant  much 
to  brush  the  encrustations  from  logic,  and  improve  the 
study  of  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  arithmetic.  Whatever 
value  the  old  crudities  once  had,  to  discard  them  now 
meant  a  truer  and  larger  view  of  what  was  useful  and 
what  was  useless  in  education,  knowledge,  life.  Likewise, 
a  more  scholarly  perception  in  matters  of  the  Faith 
brought  clearer  understanding  of  the  foundation  of 
Christianity,  and  a  rejection  of  some  baseless  traditions, 
of  some  conceptions  more  appropriate  to  magic,  and  some 
superstitious  practices.  The  contemporaneous  study  of 
the  Roman  Law  was  penetrating  through  the  accumula- 
tion of  gloss  and  commentary  to  the  text  of  the  Digest. 
So  now  this  new  religious  scholarship  would  pierce  the 
once  living  spells  of  mediaeval  symbolism,  custom,  and 
tradition,  to  the  sure  records  of  the  pristine  Faith,  read 
them  with  fresh  eyes,  and  re-interpret  them  according  to 
their  evident  meaning,  rather  than  follow  traditional  ac- 
ceptances. The  final  systematized  and  ordered  culmina- 
tion of  the  Reform,  which  came  through  Calvin,  repre- 
sents still  further  Intellectual  or  logical  advance.  But 
the  austerity  of  Calvinism  narrowed  the  fullness  of  In- 
terest In  life  embraced  by  the  prior  humanistic  generation 
of  French  reformers.  Yet  his  system  was  a  product  of 
a  French  mind,  working  Itself  out  as  soul  and  body  in  the 
Calvlnlst  Church  and  State. 


JOHN  CALVIN  389 


II 

One  may  observe  the  environment  of  genius,  and  note 
the  pabulum  on  which  It  has  fed.  But  It  presents  a  larger 
mystery  than  the  capacities  and  Hmltatlons  of  common 
men.  John  Calvin  was  a  man  of  power;  the  vivida  vis  of 
his  nature  entered  his  deeds  and  words,  and  made  his 
Christian  Institute  a  living  sword.  He  was  the  Incarna- 
tion of  the  power  of  reliance  upon  Scripture.  He  spoke 
In  the  assurance  that  he  was  the  spokesman  of  God's 
truth.  He  lived  In  the  conviction  of  God's  perfect  worth 
and  sufficiency  for  men,  his  energies  consecrated  to  God's 
glory.  This  lifted  him  above  any  selfish  and  meticulous 
Interest  In  his  own  salvation,  and  made  the  Inspiration  of 
his  leadership. 

His  Christian  Institute  ^  was  the  expression  of  himself. 
But  this  mighty  self-expression  of  Calvin  was  emphatic 
re-expresslon.  He  belongs  to  the  second  generation  of 
Reformers,  and  stands  on  Luther's  shoulders.  He  Is  an 
Interpreter  of  Paul  and  Augustine.  He  still  speaks  with 
the  mouths  of  the  great  mediaeval  schoolmen.  His  In- 
stitute Is  a  Somme,  a  summa  of  Christian  doctrine,  only 
somewhat  less  Inclusive  and  universal  than  the  Summa 
Theologiae  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 

The  arguments  of  this  great  book  held  themselves  erect 
in  Calvin's  time  and  for  the  generations  of  his  followers. 
But  It  was  not  merely  the  contents  and  the  matter  of  the 
argument  that  made  the  book's  enduring  Influence.  Its 
consummate  language  and  power  of  expression  penetrated 
and  held  fast  in  the  consciousness  of  men.  The  first 
Latin  draft  overwhelmed  the  ardent  preacher  Farel  with 
Its  power,  and  a  conviction  of  the  god-given  genius  of  the 
author.  Here  was  the  man  to  declare  and  organize  the 
Church  of  God.  And  Farel  had  been  right.  This  was 
in  1536:  five  years  later  Calvin's  French  version  became 
a   sword   of   flame    In   the   vernacular.     Its  words   and 

3  There  is  no  ground  in  the  Latin  and  French  originals  for  the  plural 
title  "  Institutes,"  used  by  all  English  translators  of  Calvin's  great  work, 
and  followed,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  English  writers  upon  Calvin. 


390  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

phrases  transmitted  themselves  as  a  rich  legacy  to  the 
advancing  French  language,  carrying  new  disclosures  of 
clarity  and  force. 

One  may  mention  the  apparently  formative  facts  of 
Calvin's  life,  until  his  final  establishment  at  Geneva.^ 
He  was  born  at  Noyon  In  PIcardy  in  1509.  His  father, 
a  man  of  law  and  business,  employed  by  the  clergy  and 
influential  families  of  the  neighborhood,  was  much  Inter- 
ested in  the  education  and  worldly  welfare  of  his  son, 
whom  he  destined  for  the  church.  The  town  was  not 
especially  bigoted  or  religious;  nor  were  its  ecclesiastical 
affairs  edifying.  A  powerful  family  held  the  bishopric  as 
by  hereditary  right,  and  there  were  quarrels  between  the 
bishop  and  the  chapter,  and  controversies  touching  the 
forgery  of  relics;  with  all  of  which  John  Calvin  as  his 
father's  son  must  have  been  acquainted.  His  boyhood 
was  little  impressed  with  reverence  for  the  Church;  nor 
was  his  respect  likely  to  Increase  when  at  the  age  of 
fourteen  he  set  forth  to  carry  on  his  education  at  the 
Paris  University,  which  gave  instruction  in  the  elementary 
as  well  as  the  higher  branches.  There  Calvin  was  first 
taught  by  Mathurin  Cordier,  and  under  him  progressed 
from  the  barbarous  Latin  smattering  prevailing  among 
the  half-educated  youth,  toward  an  ample  and  effective 
command  of  Latin.  His  intellect  was  rapidly  develop- 
ing, his  memory  was  prodigious,  and  he  was  an  inde- 
fatigable student.  Hence  the  extraordinary  attainments 
of  his  first  ten  years  after  reaching  Paris. 

As  Cordier  did  not  teach  the  higher  courses,  Calvin 
was  transferred  to  the  dirty  old  reactionary  college  of 
Montaigu,  where  the  students'  lives  were  passed  in  toil 
and  squalor.  Its  principal  was  the  most  fanatical  spirit 
of  the  Sorbonne,  the  Intolerable  Noel  Beda,  "  not  the  Ven- 
erable," as  his  enemies  remarked.  There  was  war  be- 
tween him  and  the  really  venerable  Lefevre  during  these 
student  years  of  Calvin;  and  one  cannot  doubt  to  which 

*  For  them  see  finally  E.  Doumergue,  Jean  Calvin,  etc.  (Lausanne  1899, 
etc.)  ;  more  conveniently,  Willeston  Walker,  John  Calvin,  the  Organizer 
of  Reformed  Protestantism  (N.  Y.,  1906,  Putnam's).  H.  Bossert,  Calvin 
(Las  grands  ecrivains  frangais)  —  and  innumerable  other  books ! 


JOHN  CALVIN  391 

side  Calvin  had  Inclined  when  he  left  Paris  in  1528.  This 
young  man,  who  had  already  been  given  sundry  small 
benefices,  and  was  destined  for  the  Church,  now  proceeded 
to  Orleans  to  study  the  Civil  Law.  His  vacant  place  in 
the  college  of  Montaigu,  one  may  almost  say,  was  taken 
by  a  slightly  older  man,  by  name  Ignatius  Loyola ! 

After  some  months  at  Orleans,  Calvin  was  drawn  to 
Bourges  by  the  fame  of  the  jurist  Alciat.  Bourges  was 
the  city  of  Marguerite,  who  protected  many  truth-seeking 
scholars  there.  Among  them  was  Melchior  Wolmar,  a 
Lutheran  who  taught  Calvin  Greek,  and  became  his  friend 
for  life.  At  his  house  Calvin  associated  with  "  God- 
fearing "  men,  and  advanced  in  his  religious  convictions 
and  the  knowledge  in  which  they  were  rooted.  He  met 
there  also  the  little  Theodore  de  Beze,  ten  years  his 
junior,  who  was  to  become  his  adoring  friend,  biographer 
and  successor. 

After  Bourges,  Calvin  Is  found  again  in  Paris,  studying 
more  Greek  under  Danes,  a  highly  reputed  Royal  Reader. 
Loyola  and  Rabelais  may  have  listened  with  him  to  this 
Greek  professor,  perhaps,  in  the  year  1531.  The  fruit 
of  Calvin's  classical  studies  soon  appeared  In  his  first 
work,  In  April  1532,  a  commentary  upon  Seneca's  De 
Clementia,  erudite  and  philological,  and  perhaps  showing 
the  moral  tendencies  of  his  mind. 

But  henceforth  classical  scholarship  was  )to  be  the 
humble  handmaid  to  the  Reformed  theology,  with  Calvin. 
He  went  again  to  Orleans,  where  at  the  University  he  was 
the  "  procureur  "  or  representative,  of  the  "  nation  "  of 
PIcardy.  But  by  October  1533,  he  was  back  in  a  Paris 
excited  by  an  attack  upon  Queen  Marguerite  in  a  comedy 
acted  by  the  students  of  the  college  of  Navarre,  and  by 
the  Sorbonne's  animadversions  on  a  book  known  to  have 
been  written  by  her.  The  Rector  of  the  University  was 
Calvin's  friend  Nicholas  Cop.  He  had  spoken  already 
In  the  Queen's  defense,  and  Is  supposed  to  have  asked  Cal- 
vin to  prepare  for  him  the  annual  Rector's  discourse  be- 
fore the  University.  Either  Cop  or  Calvin,  or  the  two 
together,  prepared  this  fateful  manifesto  of  the  Reform. 


392  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Men's  passions,  already  aroused,  became  enflamed.  Cop 
fled  to  Basel,  and  Calvin  left  Paris.  For  a  while  he  lived 
at  Angouleme,  then  at  Nerac,  Marguerite's  residence 
after  she  became  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  where  dwelt 
the  good  old  Lefevre.  After  a  while  Calvin  returned 
to  Noyon,  apparently  was  imprisoned  there,  and  resigned 
his  benefices!  He  went  to  Poictiers;  then  the  Affair  of 
the  Placards  drove  him  to  flight  in  earnest;  and  he  too 
went  to  Basel,  and  there  composed  in  1535  the  first  draft 
of  his  Institute. 

The  occasion  of  its  rapid  completion  and  publication 
was  the  need  to  defend  the  Reform  from  the  accusations 
of  lawlessness  and  anarchy,  which  the  violence  of  Ana- 
baptist bands  had  provoked,  and  Catholic  hate  had  quickly 
seized  upon.  The  first  Latin  draft,  with  its  powerful 
epistle  to  King  Francis,  was  published  at  Basel  in  March 
1536.  Biit  the  date  of  the  letter  to  the  King  is  August 
1535.  It  opens  with  the  statement  that  the  writer  had 
had  no  thought  of  addressing  His  Majesty  when  he  first 
set  himself  to  write  his  book.  His  only  purpose  was 
"  d'enseigner  quelques  rudimens;  par  lesquelz,  ceux  qui 
seroient  touchez  d'aucune  bonne  affection  de  Dieu,  feus- 
sent  instruictz  a  vrai  piete."  ^  But  "  seeing  that  the  rage 
of  certain  of  the  wicked  had  so  risen  in  thy  realm  as  to 
leave  no  place  for  sound  doctrine,  I  thought  it  better  to 
make  this  book  serve  both  as  instruction  to  those  whom  I 
had  intended  to  teach  and  as  a  confession  of  Faith  to 
thee,  that  thou  mightest  know  what  is  the  doctrine  against 
which  those  so  furiously  rage  who  are  troubling  thy  realm 
to-day  with  fire  and  sword." 

He  had  felt  no  shame  to  present  a  ''  somme  "  ^  of  this 
same  doctrine,  which  they  think  should  be  punished  by 
imprisonment  or  exile,  or  the  fire;  and  he  knows  with 
what  horrible  reports  the  King's  ears  have  been  filled, 
and  the  false  calumnies  by  which  this  doctrine  has  been 

s  From  Calvin's  French  translation  of  1541.  It  is  almost  impiety  to 
translate  Calvin's  mighty  French.  Where  it  seems  quite  clear,  I  have 
not  tried  to. 

^  The  Latin,  of  course,  is  summam,  which  takes  us  back  to  Thomas 
Aquinas.     See  post  p.  404  sqq. 


JOHN  CALVIN  393 

defamed.  He  has  no  thought  of  making  a  personal  de- 
fense, which  might  again  open  France  to  him.  "  Mais 
j'entreprens  la  cause  comme  de  tous  les  fideles,  et  mesme 
celle  de  Christ."  We  have  no  reason  to  glory,  save  In 
the  pity  of  God,  through  which  with  no  merit  of  our  own, 
we  are  saved.  But  our  doctrine  Is  above  the  glory  and 
power  of  this  world;  "  car  elle  n'est  pas  nostre :  mals  de 
DIeu  vivant  et  de  son  Christ."  Calvin  refutes  the  charge 
that  it  is  new  and  dubious  and  unconfirmed  by  miracles, 
which  are  not  needed  by  those  who  forge  no  new  Gospel, 
but  can  claim  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  for 
their  re-assertlon  of  Christ's  truth.  He  shows  that  the 
Church  Fathers  are  not  against  him;  and  as  for  custom^  It 
were  sheer  Iniquity  to  yield  to  It,  since  the  better  things 
rarely  please  the  majority.  So  particular  vices  attain  to 
a  common  vicious  consent: — "  mauvalse  coustume  n'est 
autre  chose  qu'une  peste  publlque."  As  to  which  Is  the 
true  Church,  he  has  also  much  to  say.  And  again,  he  begs 
the  King  not  to  be  moved  by  false  charges  of  sedition 
brought  against  those  who  live  simple,  peaceable  lives, 
who  even  when  driven  from  their  homes  do  not  cease  to 
pray  for  the  prosperity  of  the  King  and  his  realm. 
"  They  have  not  so  111  profited  from  the  Gospel  that  their 
lives  are  not  examples  to  their  defamers,  of  chastity, 
mercy,  temperance,  patience  and  modesty.  Surely  the 
truth  itself  testifies  for  us  that  we  fear  and  honor  God, 
when  by  our  life  and  by  our  death  we  wish  to  sanctify  His 
name." 

Thus  this  letter  reads  as  an  early  Christian  "  Apology  " 
to  a  Roman  Emperor,  using  similar  arguments.  It  closes 
with  a  veiled  threat.  If  their  just  pleas  will  not  be  heard, 
but  are  answered  only  with  prison,  blows,  and  burnings, 
then  truly,  as  sheep  led  to  the  slaughter,  they  are  reduced 
to  extremity.  '*  Tellement  neantmolns,  qu'en  nostre  pa- 
tience nous  possederons  noz  ames,  et  attendrons  la  main 
forte  du  Seigneur:  laquelle,  sans  doubte,  se  monstrera  en 
saison,  et  apparoistra  armee,  tant  pour  dellvrer  les  povres 
de  leur  affliction,  que  pour  punir  les  contempteurs." 

"  l>e    Seigneur    Roy    des    Roys    vueille    establlr    ton 


394  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Throsne  en  justice,  et  ton  Siege  en  equlte,  Tresfort  et 
TresUlustre  Roy." 

One  should  read  this  epistle  to  King  Francis  to  feel 
its  power.  The  author  was  twenty-six  years  old.  Be- 
fore taking  up  the  contents  of  his  Institute,  we  may  follow 
for  a  w^hlle  the  man  himself. 

Having  published  his  book,  Calvin  left  Basel  for 
Ferrara,  perhaps  to  counsel  its  Duchess,  Renee  of  France, 
who  led  an  anxious  life  as  an  adherent  of  the  Reform. 
He  exhorted  her  to  steadfastness,  and  composed  writings 
against  papist  rites  and  superstitions,  the  Mass,  the  wor- 
ship of  the  wafer,  indulgences,  and  the  use  of  holy  water. 
He  evidently  detested  Italy,  declaring,  as  Beze  reports, 
that  he  entered  it  only  that  he  might  leave  It. 

From  Ferrara,  by  various  circuities  of  route,  with 
Strasbourg  in  his  mind,  Calvin  came  to  Geneva.  The 
town  had  already  cast  out  Its  objectionable  bishops,  and 
wnth  the  aid  of  Berne,  had  freed  Itself  from  their  domina- 
tion and  the  over-lordship  of  the  dukes  of  Savoy. 
Through  troubles  and  disturbances,  It  had  organized  It- 
self democratically  after  the  model  of  other  towns  In  the 
Swiss  Confederacy.  The  General  Council  of  all  the  cit- 
izens elected  the  four  syndics  and  the  Lieutenant  de  la 
Justice.  Sixteen  citizens,  also  chosen  by  the  General 
Council,  with  the  four  Syndics  of  the  current  year  and  the 
four  of  the  year  before,  made  the  Little  Council,  usually 
called  simply  the  Council.  In  emergencies,  It  could  add 
thirty-five  leading  citizens  to  itself,  and  thus  become  the 
Council  of  Sixty.  In  Imitation  of  Berne,  a  council  of  Two 
Hundred  also  was  inaugurated,  chosen  by  the  Little  Coun- 
cil. Under  the  exhortations  of  the  fiery  preacher  Farel, 
and  with  the  support  of  Berne,  Geneva  had  declared  itself 
"  for  the  holy  law  of  the  Gospel  and  the  word  of 
God.  .  .  .  abandoning  all  masses  and  other  rites  and 
papal  abuses,  images  and  Idols."  It  voted  also  to  estab- 
lish schools.  In  this  action  the  Councils  represented 
Church  and  State.  They  adopted  the  strict  discipline  of 
manners  obtaining  in  other  reformed  Swiss  cities,  which 
represented  the  reaction  of  the  French  and  Swiss  Reform 


JOHN  CALVIN  395 

against  the  current  looseness  of  morals.  At  this  time, 
Geneva  had  about  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants;  and  its 
violent  quarrels  were  merely  stifled  for  the  moment,  when 
Calvin  arrived  in  July  1536  en  route  for  Strasbourg. 

Farel  was  the  most  influential  leader  of  the  Geneva 
Church  —  and  State.  He  had  published  a  brief  "  Som- 
maire  "  of  the  Reformed  Faith.  But  on  the  appear- 
ance of  Calvin's  Institute^  this  fiery  enthusiast  de- 
clared his  own  book  useless,  so  much  more  abundantly  did 
the  celestial  water  flow  in  Calvin's  work.  He  accosted 
Calvin  at  the  inn,  and  did  not  stop  with  gentle  persuasion 
in  his  endeavor  to  change  Calvin's  plan  to  proceed  to 
Strasbourg,  and  lead  a  life  of  study.  He  swore  that  God 
would  curse  him  and  his  retired  life  if  he  drew  back  and 
refused  to  aid  the  Genevan  Church  in  its  necessities. 
Calvin  was  as  if  struck  from  heaven;  he  recognized  the 
call  of  God,  and  overcoming  his  timidity  and  reserve, 
agreed  to  stay."^ 


Ill 

Under  Farel's  aegis,  Calvin  entered  upon  a  career  des- 
tined to  create  a  Reformed  Church,  with  a  Reformed 
dogma,  liturgy,  and  ethics,  and  political  institutions  in 
harmony.  It  was  in  Geneva  that  he  brought  the  Calvin- 
istic  Church-State  into  most  complete  existence;  not  with- 
out setbacks,  revolts,  and  many  troubles.  At  times,  when 
his  influence  was  great  in  Europe,  a  city  election  (1553) 
might  go  against  him,  or  the  Council  might  withhold  its 
consent  to  the  publication  of  one  of  his  books !  One 
thinks  of  Innocent  III  lording  it  over  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth,  when  his  unruly  Romans  had  driven  him  to  take 
refuge  in  Viterbo. 

The  first  labor  of  Calvin,  and  those  with  whom  he 
worked,  and  later  dominated,  was  to  bring  about  the  or- 
ganization, one  might  say,  the  formulation  of  a  godly 
community.  The  fact  and  its  expression  lay  in  the 
Articles,  the  Catechism,  and  the  Confession  of  Faith,  and 

7  The  scene  is  described  in  the  writings  of  both  Calvin  and  Farel. 


396  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

their  sworn  acceptance  by  the  city.  The  Articles  —  Arti- 
culi  de  regimine  Ecclesiae  —  were  presented  with  a  writ- 
ten statement  in  the  name  of  Farel  and  "  other  preach- 
ers " ;  and  were  approved  in  January  1537.  They  de- 
clared that  the  Communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper  should 
take  place  every  Sunday,  in  view  of  the  consolation  re- 
ceived from  it  by  the  faithful,  and  seeing  that  Jesus  did 
not  institute  it  for  commemoration  once  or  twice  a  year, 
but  as  a  frequent  exercise  of  our  faith  and  charity. 
Those  of  evil  life  should  be  excluded,  so  that  the  sacra- 
ment might  not  be  polluted  and  profaned.  "  Pour  ceste 
cause,  nostre  Seigneur  a  mise  en  son  Esglise  la  correction 
et  discipline  d' excommunication.  .  .  ."  To  carry  out 
this  "  discipline  "  good  men  were  to  be  chosen  from  the 
different  quarters  of  the  city  whose  duty  was  to  report  evil 
doers  to  the  ministers,  for  admonishment  or  exclusion 
from  the  Supper,  but  not  from  the  preaching,  since  it 
might  please  the  Lord  to  touch  their  hearts.^  Whoever 
was  thus  excluded  from  the  Supper  was  no  longer  in  the 
Communion  of  the  Church,  and  should  not  be  permitted 
to  remain  within  the  community  of  the  faithful,  to  wit,  the 
City.  Calvin  was  as  adamant  in  his  insistence  upon  the 
right  of  the  Church  to  excommunicate,  untrammelled  by 
any  authority  beyond  itself.  And  here,  as  often  in  the 
promulgation  of  the  Reform,  one  is  reminded  of  the  or- 
ganization of  the  early  churches  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

For  the  instruction  of  the  rude  and  ignorant,  Calvin 
composed  the  first  catechism  of  the  church  of  Geneva;  in 
which  the  teaching  of  his  Institute  was  put  concisely.^ 
It  was  an  advance  in  religious  instruction.  Like  the  In- 
stitute which  It  summarized,  this  "  Instruction  "  was  not 
novel  in  substance,  but  new  In  Its  function  and  Its  efficacy. 
From  Its  opening  sentence  — "  Que  tous  hommes  sont  nez 
pour  cognoistre  DIeu  " —  In  simple,  dignified  language,  It 
moves  with  force  and  even  sweetness  in  the  power  of  Its 
reason : 

^  The  Articles  provided  also  for  church  singing,  the  religious  instruc- 
tion of  children,  and  marriage. 

^  It  was  not  till  1541  that  he  composed  the  Little  Catechism,  in  dialogue 
form. 


JOHN  CALVIN  397 

"  II  nous  fault  penser,  nous  qui  faisons  profession  de  piete  que 
ceste  vie  caduque,  et  qui  bientost  finera,  ne  doibt  estre  autre  chose 
qu'une  meditation  d'immortalite.  Or,  on  ne  peult  trouver  nuUe 
parte  vie  eternelle  et  immortelle,  sinon  en  Dieu.  II  fault  doncques 
que  la  principale  cure  et  solicitude  de  nostre  vie  soit  de  chercher 
Dieu  et  aspirer  a  luy  de  toute  affection  de  cueur  et  ne  reposer  ail- 
leurs  qu'en  luy  seul." 

Present  needs  demanded  a  declaration  or  Confes- 
sion of  the  Faith,  which  "  tous  bourgeois  et  habitans  de 
Geneve  et  subjectz  du  pays  doyvent  jurer  de  garder  et 
tenir."  The  Councils  approved  the  measure.  The  diffi- 
culty was  to  make  all  the  people  take  the  oath,  which 
should  be  administered  through  the  local  assemblies  of 
the  "  dizaines,"  In  which  the  city  was  divided.  Objections 
came  from  many  kinds  of  people.  There  were  soon  two 
parties,  "  jurants  "  and  "  non-jurants."  In  the  main  the 
oaths  were  sworn  at  last.  But  the  next  election  was  un- 
favorable. The  preachers  were  requested  by  decree  to 
abstain  from  politics  and  devote  themselves  to  preaching. 
The  powerful  reformed  city  of  Berne  supported  certain 
forms  of  worship,  and  after  a  conference  with  the  Bernese 
representatives,  the  government  of  Geneva  demanded  of 
Farel  and  Calvin  that  they  administer  the  Communion  In 
the  manner  agreed  upon  with  Berne.  Calvin  was  no 
stickler  as  to  such  minutiae;  but  was  a  rock  against  Inter- 
ference. Hence  a  refusal.  Banishment  was  pronounced 
against  them.  And  Calvin  made  his  way  to  Strasbourg, 
upon  the  strenuous  invitation  of  Sturm,  the  great  Reform 
educator,  and  others.     The  year  was  1538. 

In  Strasbourg,  Calvin  taught  and  preached,  gained 
much  from  Intercourse  with  Sturm  and  Bucer,  revised  his 
Institute,  and  composed  his  reply  to  Cardinal  Sadoletus, 
through  which  the  godly  minded  of  Geneva  saw  that  there 
was  none  like  him.  The  affairs  of  Geneva  did  not  pro- 
ceed securely.  There  were  party  tumults.  The  stren- 
uously religious  faction,  friends  of  Farel  and  Calvin,  were 
called  Gtiillermins ,  after  Farel's  Christian  name:  later  one 
said  Calvlnlsts.  Farel  counselled  charity;  Calvin  for  a 
while  abstained  from  action.     When  he  spoke,  It  was  to 


398  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

express  his  love  for  Geneva,  and  point  out  that  the  enemy 
of  his  people  was  not  their  fellow  citizens,  but  Satan. ^° 
The  new  preachers  lacked  Calvin's  power  of  moral  aus- 
terity. The  College,  the  Hospital,  the  morals  of  the 
town,  deteriorated.  A  Catholic  reaction  made  some 
progress,  fostered  by  the  persuasive  letter  of  the  Cardinal. 
Berne  menaced  Geneva's  liberties.  The  City  could  not 
safely  appeal  for  succor  from  without.  Solidarity,  Inner 
strength  w^as  needed,  that  It  might  take  Its  free  and  Inde- 
pendent place  by  the  side  of  the  other  Reformed  cantons. 
That  could  come  through  reorganization,  regeneration; 
for  which  Calvin  was  the  only  fitting  Instrument.  The 
decision  was  taken  to  recall  him.  He  had  scruples,  felt 
distrustful  of  Geneva  and  of  his  own  timid  nature  (of 
which  no  one  else  accused  him !) .  He  had  many  Interests 
elsewhere;  at  Strasbourg  where  his  Influence  was  growing, 
In  his  studies.  In  the  colloquy  at  Worms,  which  he  at- 
tended, as  he  did  the  adjourned  colloquy  in  Ratlsbonne. 
His  decision  wavered;  but  again  a  letter  from  Farel 
turned  him  toward  Geneva.  His  disinterested  friends  In 
Strasbourg,  and  also  the  pastors  of  Zurich,  exhorted  him 
to  undertake  the  charge,  urging  that  Geneva,  situated  at 
the  confines  of  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  might  be  the 
hearth  from  which  the  Gospel  was  destined  to  spread,  for 
the  enlargement  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  So  the  event 
proved.  Through  the  genius  of  Calvin,  Geneva  became 
the  capital  city  of  the  Reform,  radiating  energy  and 
Inspiration. 

Calvin  returned  to  Geneva  in  September  1541,  and 
entered  on  his  task.  At  his  request  the  Council  Imme- 
diately selected  six  of  Its  members  to  act  with  him.  Three 
days  later  he  wrote :  "  After  offering  my  services  to  the 
Council,  I  declared  that  the  church  could  not  maintain  It- 
self unless  a  constitution  were  established  modelled  on  the 
word  of  God  and  the  practice  of  the  primitive  church.  I 
sketched  the  chief  features,  that  I  might  be  understood." 
His    object  was   to   secure   the    self-government   of   the 

10  Ep.  to  the  Church  of  Geneva  —  Bonnet,  Lettres  de  Jean  Cahin,  I,  p. 
13    (Paris,  1854). 


JOHN  CALVIN  399 

Church,  and  give  It  sufficient  disciplinary  powers  to  keep 
its  members  In  right  belief  and  conduct.  The  Ordon- 
nances  as  finally  passed,  somewhat  modified  from  Calvin's 
draft,  declared  that  Christ  had  instituted  In  his  Church 
i:he  four  "  offices"  of  pastor,  doctor  (or  teacher),  elder 
and  deacon.  Pastors  (or  ministers)  were  to  be  examined 
and  chosen  by  the  body  of  pastors  in  office,  and  confirmed 
by  the  Council;  the  elders  were  chosen  by  the  Council,  on 
consultation  with  the  ministers.  The  ministers'  duty  was 
to  preach,  admonish  and  reprove,  in  public  or  private,  and 
administer  the  Sacraments.  It  was  for  the  teachers, 
through  the  school,  to  Instruct  in  sound  doctrine  and  in  the 
"  sciences  humaines."  The  deacons  were  entrusted  with 
the  distribution  of  alms  and  the  management  of  the  hospi- 
tals, which  were  open  to  the  Indigent  as  well  as  to  the  sick. 
Begging  was  prohibited.  An  exceeding  abundance  of  ser- 
mons was  prescribed,  not  on  Sunday  alone.  The  Com- 
munion was  to  be  administered  four  times  a  year.  All 
the  ministers  were  required  to  meet  weekly  for  discussion, 
and  every  three  months  for  criticism  of  one  another;  If 
there  was  contention  among  them,  the  elders  should  be 
called  in;  and  when  no  decision  could  be  reached  upon 
grave  matters  of  doctrine  or  conduct,  recourse  was  to  be 
had  to  the  magistrates.  Under  the  circumstances,  the 
body  of  ministers  obtained  great  influence  in  affairs.  But 
the  central  organ  of  spiritual  government  and  discipline 
was  the  Consistory,  composed  of  members  of  the  ministry 
and  of  twelve  elders.  It  could  summon  before  It  for 
examination,  censure,  or  ultimate  excommunication,  who- 
ever offended  In  doctrine  or  conduct,  or  failed  In  church 
attendance.  As  the  functions  of  the  Consistory  might 
Impinge  upon  the  powers  of  the  Council  to  maintain  order 
and  punish  for  crime,  the  following  significant  provision 
was  inserted: 

*'  That  all  this  [discipline]  shall  be  done  in  such  fashion  that 
the  ministers  shall  have  no  civil  jurisdiction,  and  shall  use  none  but 
the  spiritual  sword  of  the  Word  of  God  as  St.  Paul  directs  them; 
and  that  the  authority  of  the  government  and  of  ordinary  justice 
shall  in  no  way  be  diminished  by  the  Consistory,  but  that  civil 


400  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

authority  shall  remain  unimpaired.  And,  in  particular,  where  it 
shall  be  necessary  to  inflict  some  punishment  or  restrain  the  par- 
ties, the  ministers  with  the  Consistory,  having  heard  the  parties 
and  made  remonstrances  and  admonitions  as  shall  be  fitting,  shall 
report  all  to  the  Council,  which  shall  deliberate  on  their  report  and 
order  and  render  judgment  according  to  the  merits  of  the  case."  ^^ 

These  provisions  for  the  exercise  of  discipline  by  the 
body  of  ministers  or  by  the  Consistory  made  the  primary 
Calvlnlst  solution  of  the  problem  of  maintaining  the  Inde- 
pendence and  disciplinary  power  of  the  Church  In  harmony 
with  the  authority  of  the  civil  government.  Calvin  set 
himself  to  uphold  the  Church  In  this  relationship  of  Inde- 
pendence and  cooperation.  The  struggle  was  long,  and  In 
moments  doubtful.  Calvin,  although  minister,  held  no 
position  In  the  city  government,  and  was  not  even  made 
a  burgess  till  1559.  Yet  he  had  become  Geneva's  auto- 
crat, "the  boss,"  In  the  language  of  American  politics: 
and  that  In  civil  as  well  as  church  affairs.  Although  he 
felt  the  conflict  to  be  repugnant  to  his  timid  and  retiring 
nature,  he  must  have  known  his  ability  and  fitness  for  It. 
With  vividness  and  tenacity  he  beheld  as  set  In  principle 
the  Import  of  seemingly  small  matters;  and  the  power  of 
his  logic  and  passionate  Insistence  was  not  to  be  with- 
stood. All  effective  opposition  to  him  ceased  In  1555, 
when  the  Councils  by  a  vote  to  abide  by  the  Ordonnances, 
finally  secured  to  the  Consistory  the  right  of  excommuni- 
cation.^- Shortly  afterwards  the  foolish  violence  of 
Calvin's  opponents  brought  upon  them  cruel  measures 
of  banishment  and  death.  Calvin  approved  and  aided 
in  the  prosecution,  and  saw  the  hand  of  God  In  the  tor- 
tures which  forced  questionable  admissions  from  the  vic- 
tims. With  Calvin  the  spread  of  Christ's  Kingdom  and 
the  word  of  God  hallowed  every  measure.  One  may  add 
that  his  Influence  in  Geneva  had  been  strengthened  through 
the   admission   to   citizenship    of   numerous    Frenchmen, 

1^  From  Walker's  Jo/in  Calvin,  p.  273. 

12  See  Walker's  Jo/m  Calvin,  Chapters  VIII-XIII  for  the  story  of  these 
conflicts.  Also,  "  Calvin's  Programme  for  a  Puritan  State  in  Geneva,"  H. 
D.  Foster,  Harvard  Theological  Rev.,  Oct.,  1908. 


JOHN  CALVIN  401 

exiles  for  their  faith,  men  of  education  and  Intelligence, 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  Reform. 

In  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  Ordonnances,  Calvin 
formed  an  Academy  combining  elementary  and  university 
Instruction.  It  was  inaugurated  in  1559  under  the  rec- 
torship of  Beza,  the  master's  most  devoted  disciple. 
Distinguished  teachers  were  installed,  and  students  drew 
together  from  all  countries.  It  became  a  power  for  the 
spread  of  Calvinism,  as  It  sent  forth  convinced  and  in- 
structed disciples  to  teach  and  preach  In  France,  England, 
Scotland  and  the  Lowlands. 

Calvin  continued  in  the  Academy  the  courses  of  theo- 
logical lectures  which  he  had  given  unremittingly  for 
years.  They  formed  the  nucleus  of  his  Commentaries  on 
the  books  of  Scripture.  To  the  task  of  commentator  he 
had  brought  wide  reading,  an  exceptional  knowledge  of 
the  tongues,  and  a  new  and  personal  insight  into  the  mean- 
ing of  the  sacred  writers.  They  were  the  inspired  enun- 
clators  of  God's  words.  Calvin  divined  that  these  words 
of  God  had  definite  and  single  meaning,  to  be  derived 
from  the  text.  His  exegesis,  following  upon  the  work  of 
Luther,  measurably  freed  itself  from  allegorical  and 
mystical  Interpretations.  His  Commentaries  have  al- 
ways exerted  enormous  Influence. 

The  struggle  and  victory  In  Geneva,  and  the  lectures  In 
Its  Academy,  were  the  fulcrum  of  Calvin's  active  Influence 
upon  western  Europe,  and  most  directly  upon  France. 
Thither  passed  Innumerable  letters  from  Geneva, 
strengthening  and  sharpening  the  convictions  of  the  faith- 
ful, heartening  the  wavering,  Insisting  upon  order  and  or- 
ganization. From  Lausanne  and  Strasbourg,  as  well  as 
from  Geneva,  travelled  preachers,  impressed  with  the 
thoughts  and  words  and  the  formative  Ideas  of  Calvin;  — 
"  daring  all  things  boldly  for  the  word  of  God,  of  which 
they  are  made  the  ministers."  The  Reformed  churches 
of  France  organized  themselves  along  the  Hnes  which 
Calvin  set  —  a  band  of  communicants,  one  or  more  minis- 
ters, a  Consistory,  with  regular  preaching  and  admlnlstra- 


402  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tion  of  the  sacraments.^^  But  from  lack  of  a  co-oper- 
ating civil  government,  the  Genevan  model  could  not  be 
wholly  followed  in  these  French  churches.  The  minister 
was  chosen  by  the  elders  and  deacons,  who  were  elected 
by  the  body  of  the  church.  Ministers,  elders,  and  deacons 
constituted  the  governing  Consistory.  The  mode  of  wor- 
ship, with  the  Catechism,  came  also  from  Geneva,  where 
Calvin  had  fixed  the  liturgy  of  the  Reform.  In  1559  a 
small  synod  of  French  churches  met  in  Paris  to  formulate 
a  Confession  of  Faith  and  a  general  plan  of  organization. 
Calvin's  teaching  and  methods  were  embodied  in  the 
result,  although  he  had  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the 
meeting.^'* 

IV 

Calvin's  sweep  of  purpose  made  for  the  greatness  of 
his  Christian  Institute.  AH  the  dIscipHne  of  his  study  and 
all  the  wisdom  of  his  experience  rendered  this  book  of 
many  revisions  a  complete  expression  of  his  personality. 

The  first  draft  was  completed  in  1535,  when  Calvin 
was  twenty-six.  The  strenuously  systematized  religious 
thinking  which  characterized  it  must  have  been  gaining 
form  in  the  young  man's  mind  through  the  preceding 
years,  overarching  his  classical  and  legal  studies  with  a 
consecrating  purpose.  Great  was  the  disciplinary  value 
of  these  studies.  What  could  have  been  more  suggestive 
to  the  man  who  was  to  pierce  through  church  tradition  to 
the  rock  of  Scripture,  than  the  new  training  in  the  Civil 
Law,  from  which  gifted  students  gained  the  faculty  of 
penetrating  through  the  maze  of  gloss  and  commentary  to 
the  text  of  the  Digest'^ 

His  education,  his  tense  purpose,  and  his  conviction 
that  he  was  the  spokesman  of  God's  truth,  contributed  to 
his  style  of  power.  He  wrote  Latin  admirably;  and  his 
French,  for  lucidity  and  force,  has  never  been  excelled. 

13  Cf.  Lemonnier,  in  Hist,  de  France  (ed.  by  Lavisse),  Vol.  V,2  p.  219, 
sqq. 

i"^  In  1557  Calvin  put  in  the  form  of  a  letter  "To  the  King  of  France," 
an  admirable  "  Confession  des  Eglises  de  France."     Bonnet,  II,  p.  151,  sqq. 


JOHN  CALVIN  403 

He  is  one  of  the  great  creators,  and  Is  often  called  the 
'*  father,"  of  modern  French.  Pascal  and  Bossuet,  In 
whatsoever  they  may  have  equalled  or  surpassed  him, 
^'  stand  upon  his  shoulders."  ^^  His  unequalled  talent  for 
argument  and  effective  presentation  was  early  shown  in 
the  "  Reply  to  the  Letter  of  Cardinal  Sadoleto."  He 
took  great  pains  with  the  arrangement  of  topics.  The 
repeated  revisions  of  the  Institute  brought  some  new  mat- 
ter and  further  elaboration;  but  most  clearly  they  evince 
the  author's  constant  effort  to  perfect  the  arrangement, 
the  general  lucid  composition  of  the  work. 

The  power  of  argument,  the  power  of  style,  both  were 
the  man;  the  moving  energies  were  a  sense  of  the  over- 
whelming primacy  of  God,  faith  in  God's  purposes,  and  a 
conviction  of  the  loving  nature  of  those  purposes  as  to 
the  elect,  among  whom  of  a  surety  was  this  vessel  of 
divine  truth,  John  Calvin.  The  power  which  reliance 
upon  God  has  imparted  to  chosen  men,  becomes  irresist- 
ible when  increased  through  the  devoted  religious  sense 
that  the  ineffable  Will  is  enough  for  man  —  yea,  though 
He  slay  me !  Assurance  of  his  own  salvation  may  steel 
the  martyr's  heart,  or  the  soldier's  arm.  But  conviction 
of  God's  absolute  worth  and  sufficiency  for  men,  devotion 
to  His  Honor  and  His  glory,  rather  than  interest  in  the 
individual's  salvation,  is  needful  for  the  inspired  religious 
leader.  This  devotion  was  possessed  by  Calvin,  who 
felt  and  knew  that  the  chief  end  of  man  was  not  his  soul's 
salvation,  but  to  know  and  glorify  God.^^ 

These  were  perhaps  the  most  personal  and  intimate 
elements  of  the  power  entering  the  composition  of  the 
Institute.  Around  and  about  and  behind  them  was  the 
fund  of  the  opinions,  knowledge,  and  convictions  belong- 
ing to  the  Reformers  In  France  and  Germany  and  Switzer- 
land. There  was  no  part  of  Calvin  and  his  work  that  was 
not  affected  and  made  possible  by  this  fund  of  antecedent 
Protestant  knowledge  and  opinion. 

15  See  generally  all  French  works  upon  the  literature  of  this  period,  e.g., 
Lanson,  Brunetiere,  Faguet. 

16  Again,  see  the  Reply  to  Sadoleto;  and  Bonnet,  o.  c.  II,  pp.  164  and 
203. 


404  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Of  the  great  books  which  have  exerted  enormous  in- 
fluence, the  Christian  Institute  of  Calvin  contains  a  mini- 
mum of  strictly  speaking  original  thought.  In  a  way, 
all  books  of  Christian  theology  are  based  on  Scripture  in- 
terpreted reasonably  or  fantastically.  The  Institute  was 
founded  on  Scripture  rationally  and  acutely  interpreted. 
But  here,  less  learnedly,  Luther  preceded  Calvin.  Doc- 
trinally  the  mighty  antecedent  of  the  Christian  Institute 
was  that  man  of  prodigious  doctrinal  originality,  the 
Apostle  Paul.  Augustine,  in  his  further  elaborations.  Is 
the  next  antecedent  of  Calvin's  book.  The  Christian  In- 
stitute Is  Paul  and  Augustine  absorbed  by  a  man  of  living 
power,  and  re-endowed  with  life  through  restatement 
and  adaptation  to  the  sixteenth  century.  Calvin  added 
little  to  Paul  and  Augustine  doctrinally,  but  much  insti- 
tutionally as  It  were,  through  his  constructive  faculty  of 
civic  and  church  organization. 

The  Institute  Is  Indebted  to  other  Fathers  of  the 
Church,  and  may  draw  on  them  by  name.  Naturally  It 
has  absorbed  the  NIcene  formulation  of  dogma;  and  Is 
thus  fundamentally  orthodox.  Its  debt  to  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen  Is  less  evident,  less  conscious.  But  Calvin 
knew  Peter  Lombard,  Bernard  and  Aquinas;  Duns  Scotus 
affects  his  conception  of  the  will  as  the  primary  element 
of  the  divine  nature.  The  Christian  Institute  is  by  no 
means  an  unscholastlc  work.  Calvin  and  other  great 
reformers  of  his  epoch  strove  to  re-establish  what  they 
conceived  to  be  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  and 
the  early  Church;  but  they  had  neither  the  will  nor  the 
power  to  shake  themselves  out  of  the  assumptions,  the 
modes  of  thinking  and  argumentation,  which  constituted 
a  large  part  of  their  normal  mental  processes. 

The  very  idea  of  the  Institute  as  a  summary  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  reverts  to  the  Sentences  of  the  Lombard  and 
the  Summa  Theologiae  of  Aquinas.  But  as  the  name 
Institute  implies  and  as  Calvin  says  explicitly,^'  it  was  a 
work  of  elementary  instruction,  "  une  clef  et  ouverture 

17  E.g.  at  the  opening  of  the  Epistle  to  the  King  in  the  "  Argument "  to 
the  French  edition  of  1541. 


JOHN  CALVIN  405 

pour  donner  acces  a  tous  enfans  de  DIeu,  a  bien  et 
droictement  entendre  I'Escrlture  saincte,"  and  not  a 
comprehensive  Summa  of  whatever  could  be  enfolded 
beneath  the  wings  of  sacra  doctrina.  Calvin's  work  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  "  ancillary  sciences,"  and  so  far 
as  possible  eschews  the  metaphysics  of  theology,  all  of 
which  were  dear  to  Thomas,  and  had  place  in  his  great 
Siimma. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  arrangement  of  the  two 
books.  The  Summa  of  Aquinas  follows  what  one  may 
regard  as  the  natural  order  of  presentation  of  the  Chris- 
tian matter,  which  had  practically  been  followed  by  Peter 
Lombard,  and  Is  indicated  in  Augustine's  Commentary  on 
Genesis:  I.  e.  God,  His  unity  and  trinity,  the  creation  of 
the  world,  man,  his  fall,  the  Incarnation  as  the  restoring 
means  of  his  salvation,  the  Sacraments  and  the  final  Judg- 
ment.^^  To  a  considerable  extent,  especially  in  his  final 
edition  of  1559,  Calvin  follows  the  same  order. ^^  Thus 
in  Book  I  of  that  edition,  he  treats  of  God,  and  of  the 
nature  of  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  so  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  in  substantially  the  order  of  Thomas; 
and,  in  the  same  order,  he  takes  up  the  Angels  and  the 
creation  of  man,  body  and  soul.  With  Book  II  comes 
the  Fall  of  Man  and  the  Incarnation,  and,  In  fine,  the 
saving  work  of  Christ.  This  matter  is  continued  through 
Books  III  and  IV,  concluding  with  a  treatment  of  the 
Church  and  Sacraments.^^     Thus  the  order  which  Calvin 

18  Cf.  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Vol.  II,  p.  352  sqq. 

19  It  will  not  be  necessary,  either  for  this  or  for  our  other  purposes,  to 
discuss  the  numerous  editions  of  the  Institute  as  revised  by  the  author  and 
published  in  his  lifetime.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  1539  he  published  a 
revised  and  somewhat  enlarged  edition,  and  in  1541  what  was  sub- 
stantially a  French  translation  of  the  same;  it  is  this  edition  of  1541  that 
should  be  read  as  a  monument  of  French.  Calvin  continued  to  revise  and 
republish  until,  in  1559,  he  published  what  must  be  taken  as  the  final 
and  standard  edition,  divided  into  four  books,  in  which  the  work  was  re- 
arranged and  much  enlarged.  In  1560  this  edition  appeared  in  a  French 
translation  made  by  Calvin  or  under  his  direction.  See  the  Prolegomena 
to  Vol.  I  and  the  Introduction  to  Vol.  Ill  of  the  Strasbourg  edition  of  the 
Opera  (1863  sqq.)  and  the  Introduction  by  A.  Lefranc  to  the  French  edi- 
tion of  1541  (Ecole  des  Hautes  fitudes,  176-177).  Among  the  Reformers, 
Calvin's  Institute  had  been  preceded  by  Melanchthon's  Loci  Communes,  by 
Zwingli's  Commentaries,  and  Farel's  Sommaire  brieve,  all  designed  as 
Compendia  of  the  reformed  religion. 

20  There  is  one  last  chapter  on  Civil  Government. 


4o6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

adopted  In  his  final  revision  was,  In  skeleton,  the  order  fol- 
lowed in  the  Siiinma.  The  resemblance  becomes  less 
obvious  when  perusing  the  substance  of  the  work,  because 
of  the  different  stress  laid  by  Calvin  on  his  topics.  Where 
he  finds  himself  In  harmony  with  the  Church  of  all  the 
centuries,  he  speaks  briefly.  Thus  in  treating  the  funda- 
mental dogma  of  the  Trinity,  he  avoids  Its  metaphysics, 
gives  a  plain  discussion  of  the  Scriptural  testimony  to  its 
truth,  and  reaches  an  orthodox  conclusion. ^^  On  the 
other  hand,  In  treating  of  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ 
and  the  believer's  faith  In  Him,  In  Book  III,  he  greatly 
enlarges  the  controversial  topics  of  justification  by  faith 
and  the  divine  election  to  salvation  or  damnation;  while 
In  Book  IV,  his  treatment  of  the  Church  and  Its  Sacra- 
ments, though  falling  In  Its  proper  order,  becomes  largely 
a  polemic  against  the  Papacy  and  the  Mass,  which  natu- 
rally had  no  place  in  the  Smnma  of  Aquinas. 

Like  the  personality  of  which  It  was  the  expression, 
the  Christian  Institute  grew  and  developed,  and  yet  in 
many  respects  remained  the  same  from  the  first  to  the  last 
edition.  Its  temper,  Its  point  of  view,  Its  attitude  toward 
God  and  man.  Its  human  quality,  was  unchanged;  but  its 
doctrinal  expositions  were  elaborated  and  made  more 
sheer  and  ineluctable;  while  the  author^s  accumulations 
of  experience  as  well  as  learning,  Christian  and  profane, 
contributed  to  swell  the  book.  Calvin's  personality  seems 
to  project  most  saliently  from  the  French  edition  of 
1 541.  That,  with  the  Latin  of  1539  on  which  it  was 
based,  had  been  thoughtfully  revised  from  the  first  draft 
of  1536,  but  was  not  yet  overlaid  with  the  learned  ar- 
gumentation which  serves  to  veil  the  man  Calvin  from  the 
would-be  twentieth  century  appreclator.  We  have  al- 
ready drawn  upon  that  powerful  French  version  for  his 
letter  to  the  King,  and  may  advantageously  continue  with 
It  for  the  body  of  the  book,  still  giving  brief  extracts  in 
Calvin's  nervous  French,  so  far  as  they  seem  readily  com- 
prehensible. 

The  prefatory  Argument  points  out  that  although  Holy 

21  It  is  in  Chapter  IV  of  the  1541  edition,  say  pp.  217-234.  It  is  some- 
what enlarged  in  the  1559  edition,  where  it  makes  Chapter  XIII  of  Book  I. 


JOHN  CALVIN  407 

Scripture  contains  "une  doctrine  parfaicte,  a  laquelle  on 
ne  peut  rien  adjouster  [ajouter],  nevertheless  the  un- 
trained man  needs  guidance  through  it;  those  who  have 
received  ''  plus  ample  lumiere  de  Dieu,"  may  lend  the 
hand  "  pour  les  conduire  et  les  ayder  a  trouver  la  somme 
de  ce  que  Dieu  nous  a  voula  enseigner  en  sa  parolle." 
One  notes  here  a  point  in  Calvin's  position:  the  Bible  is 
for  all,  but  there  is  need  of  guidance  from  those  who 
have  received  more  light  from  God:  "  a  ceste  fin  j'ay  com- 
pose ce  present  livre,"  which  shall  be  a  key  to  a  right 
understanding  of  Scripture  for  all  the  children  of  God. 
And  since  we  should  recognize  that  all  truth  proceeds 
from  God, —  "  j'oseray  hardiment  protester,  en  simpli- 
cite,  ce  que  je  pense  de  cest  oeuvre,  le  recognoissant  estre 
de  Dieu,  plus  que  mien."  Let  God  have  the  praise,  for 
His  is  the  work,  this  work  of  Calvin's  which  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  exhort  everyone  to  read  diligently  if  they 
would  have  "  une  somme  de  la  doctrine  Chrestienne,  puis 
une  entree  a  bien  proffiter  en  la  lecture  tant  du  vieil  que 
du  nouveau  Testament."  Having  done  that,  they  will 
know  "  par  experience  "  that  I  have  spoken  advisedly. 
"  Si  quelqu'un  ne  peut  comprendre  tout  le  contenu,  il 
ne  fault  pas  qu'il  se  desespere  pourtant :  mais  qu'il  marche 
tousjours  oultre,  esperant  qu'un  passage  luy  donnera  plus 
familierement  exposition  de  I'autre.  Sur  toutes  choses,  il 
fauldra  avoir  en  recommandation,  de  recourir  a  I'Escri- 
ture,  pour  considerer  les  tesmoignages  que  j'en  allegue." 
Here  is  a  further  disclosure  of  Calvin's  attitude:  Let 
all  read  his  book  for  guidance,  and  prove  it,  each  for  him- 
self, from  the  passages  of  Scripture  which  it  cites.  This 
indeed  is  Calvinism,  or  individual  judgment  exercised 
under  wise,  i.  e.,  Calvin's  direction.  Independence  and 
guidance  are  not  easy  to  reconcile,  yet  they  must  be  joined 
by  those  who  would  escape  the  Charybdis  of  Romanism 
and  the  Scylla  of  the  Anabaptists.-^ 

~-  As  to  the  limits  to  a  proper  consideration  of  the  profundities  of  Scrip- 
ture, Calvin  says  that  we  should  keep  to  the  statements  of  the  text,  and 
not  probe  unrevealed  mysteries,  and  should  also  study  Scripture  for  our 
edification  and  not  to  satisfy  curiosity.  Bk.  I,  14,  4,  of  1559  edition,  the 
passage  practically  the  same  as  in  prior  editions, 


4o8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

What  would  I  know,  cries  Augustine,  but  God  and  the 
Soul?  —  quite  enough!  Says  Calvin,  opening  his  treat- 
ise :^^  The  sum  of  all  our  wisdom  falls  into  two  parts, 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  ourselves.  The  first  shows  that 
there  is  one  God  whom  all  should  honor  and  worship, 
'*  la  fonteine  de  toute  verite,  sapience,  bonte,  justice, 
jugement,  misericorde,  puissance,  et  sainctete," —  from 
whom  we  should  expect  and  ask  all  these  things.  The 
second,  by  showing  us  our  weakness,  misery  and  wicked- 
ness, brings  us  to  mistrust  and  hate  ourselves,  and  kindles 
in  us  a  desire  to  seek  God,  since  all  our  good  (bien)  lies 
in  him,  while  in  ourselves  we  find  a  world  of  misery. 

Augustine  echoes  through  the  opening  of  the  Institute; 
which  passes  on  to  point  out  the  correlations  between 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  ourselves:  through  the  con- 
sciousness of  our  vanity  and  wretchedness,  we  recognize 
His  truth  and  wisdom,  and  every  excellence  we  lack.  We 
are  thus  drawn  and  as  it  were  led  by  the  hand  to  find 
Him.2^  On  the  other  hand,  man  comes  to  a  true  abase- 
ment and  knowledge  of  himself  only  through  contempla- 
tion of  the  wisdom  and  might  and  purity  of  God.  And 
in  order  that  no  one  may  plead  a  pretended  ignorance, 
some  perception  of  divinity  is  implanted  in  the  mind 
through  natural  inclination. 

Calvin's  emphasis  is  upon  the  greatness  and  righteous- 
ness and  the  sovereignty  of  God.  Nothing  has  been  said 
thus  far  of  love  between  God  and  man.  Man's  life 
should  be  unbroken  obedience  to  God's  will,  since  men 
are  His  creatures,  and  He  is  the  source  of  every  good. 
Instead,  the  perversity  of  man  seeks  to  appease  Him 
with  ''  quelques  petites  satisfactions.  Au  lieu  qu'il  luy 
faillot  complaire  en  sainctete  et  innocence  de  coeur,  nous 
forgeons  je  ne  scay  quelz  fatras  et  ceremonies  de  neant, 
esperant  I'amuser." 

How  much  of  Calvin  and  of  the  gist  of  his  indictment 

23  When  not  quoting  the  French,  I  do  not  translate  Calvin  in  full,  but 
abbreviate  the  substance. 

2^  The  French  is  "  mene  par  la  main  a  le  trouver,"  while  the  Latin 
text  of  1539  has  "quasi  manu  ducitur," — the  verb  mannducere  so  frequent 
in  Aquinas. 


JOHN  CALVIN  409 

of  the  Roman  Church  is  in  this  sentence  I  Oh!  let  man 
beware  of  that  misknowledge  of  God  which  comes  from 
fashioning  Him  after  our  image;  which  the  '' coeur 
fidele  "  will  not  do,  but  will  be  content  to  have  Him  such 
as  He  manifests  Himself,  beholding  Him  upon  His 
throne  as  a  just  Judge,  "  lequel  fera  une  fois  rude  ven- 
geance sur  tous  transgresseurs,"  and  to  the  good,  will 
give  eternal  life.  This  faithful  heart  will  be  moved  not 
by  fear  alone  to  keep  from  sin:  "  mais  d'autant  qu'il 
I'ayme  et  revere  comme  son  pere,  et  le  craint  comme  son 
Seigneur,  mesmes  quand  il  n'y  auroit  nul  enfer,  si  ha-il 
horreur  de  I'offencer."  This  is  true  religion,  faith  joined 
with  that  fear  of  God  which  includes  delight  in  the  right- 
eousness of  His  law  and  reverence  freely  offered  to  His 
majesty.  Since  we  are  all  born  to  know  God,  and  the 
knowledge  which  lacks  such  delight  and  reverence  is  vain, 
manifestly  those  who  do  not  address  to  this  end  the 
thoughts  and  actions  of  their  lives,  fall  away  from  the 
purpose  of  their  creation. 

So  Calvin  makes  his  point  and  clinches  it,  and  then 
confirms  it  with  testimony  from  pagan  philosophers.  He 
declares  in  fitting,  but  not  novel  terms,  that  God  has 
graven  upon  ''  chacun  de  ses  oeuvres  certains  signes  de  sa 
majeste,  par  lesquelz  il  se  donne  a  cognoistre  a  nous  selon 
nostre  petite  capacite."  Thus,  though  His  essence  re- 
main hidden,  we  perceive  His  virtue  in  His  works.  Nor 
did  He  omit  to  communicate  by  word  and  vision  with  His 
chosen  people.  And  though  new  oracles  no  longer  come 
to  us  from  heaven,  we  have  Scripture  "  en  laquelle  il  a 
pleu  a  Dieu  de  coucher  sa  verite  a  eternelle  memoire.'* 
We  must  consider  this  question,  why  Scripture  has 
*'  mesme  authorite  envers  les  fideles,  que  pourroit  avoir 
la  voix  ouye  de  la  propre  bouche  de  Dieu.''  Whereupon 
Calvin  begins  his  argument  to  show  that  Scripture  rather 
than  the  Church  is  the  final  authority  for  Christians. 
Some  ask  how  we  could  know  that  Scripture  is  from  God, 
unless  the  Church  declared  it?  On  the  contrary,  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture  is  founded  on  the  "  tesmoinage  inte- 
ri^ur  du  Sainct  Esprit.     Car  jacoit  [quoique]   qu'en  sa 


4IO  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

propre  majeste  elle  [Scripture]  ait  assez  dequoy  estre 
reveree,  neantmoins  elle  nous  commence  lors  a  nous 
vrayement  toucher,  quand  elle  est  seellee  en  noz  coeurs 
par  le  Sainct  Esprit."  Thus  enlightened,  we  do  not  rely 
on  the  judgment  of  ourselves  or  others  for  the  assurance 
that  Scripture  Is  from  God;  "  mais  par  dessus  tout  juge- 
ment  humain  nous  arrestons  indubitablement,  qu'elle  nous 
a  este  donnee  de  la  propre  bouche  de  Dieu,  par  le  minis- 
tre  des  hommes:  tout  ainsi  que  si  nous  contemplions  a 
Toell  I'Essence  de  Dieu  en  icelle." 

Strong  words  I  This  is  the  height  of  Calvin's  argu- 
ment for  his  assured  reliance  upon  Scripture  —  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our  hearts.  In  the  light  of 
that,  the  excellences  of  Scripture  reveal  themselves  more 
strongly  in  corroboration;  for  Instance,  Its  divine  sim- 
plicity which  uses  no  artifice  beyond  truth,  so  different 
from  Demosthenes  or  Cicero  or  Plato,  as  to  whom,  says 
Calvin,  "  je  confesse  bien  qu'ilz  attireront  mervielleuse- 
ment,  et  delecteront,  et  esmouveront  jusques  a  ravir  mes- 
mes  Tesprlt." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  consensus  of  the  Church  "  n'est 
pas  sans  Importance  ";  and  the  witness  of  so  many  holy 
men  who  have  given  the  testimony  of  their  blood.  Be- 
ware of  such  as  would  lead  astray  with  individual  imag- 
inings and  alleged  inspirations.  It  Is  not  the  office  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  "  de  songer  nouvelles  revelations  .  .  . 
ou  forger  nouvelle  espece  de  doctrine,  pour  nous  retlrer 
de  la  doctrine  de  I'Evanglle,  apres  Tavolr  une  fols  receu. 
Mais  plustost  de  seeler  .  .  .  en  noz  coeurs  la  doctrine 
qui  nous  est  dispensee  par  I'Evanglle.  .  .  ."  Thus 
would  Calvin  warn  off  vagaries  (as  of  the  Anabaptists  if 
one  will)  and  bring  all  men  back  to  the  sure  foundation 
of  the  Gospel  truly  and  simply  understood,  as  by  Calvin. 

The  second  chapter  of  the  French  edition  of  1541 
opens  with  a  reference  to  an  ancient  proverb  advising 
man  to  know  himself  —  indeed  the  lack  of  self-knowledge 
is  disgraceful.  But  the  old  philosophers  wrongly  sought 
through  self-knowledge  to  enhance  the  dignity  of  man; 
we  should  seek  it  that  we  may  humbly  realize  our  misery 


JOHN  CALVIN  411 

and  weakness.  Gladly  men  hear  good  of  themselves, 
and  would  fain  beheve  in  their  ability  to  live  well  and 
happily.  The  more  modest  concede  something  to  God, 
while  retaining  for  themselves  the  better  part  of  wisdom 
and  virtue.  Whoever  will  exalt  human  nature  is  most 
welcome  everywhere.     All  this  is  fatal  self-deception. 

Although  God's  truth  and  human  judgments  agree  that 
our  best  wisdom  is  self-knowledge,  they  differ  as  to  the 
way  of  knowing.  After  the  opinion  of  the  flesh,  man 
seems  to  know  himself  when,  relying  on  his  understanding 
and  virtue,  he  sets  out  to  do  his  duty.  But  he  who  looks 
to  the  standard  of  God's  judgment  finds  in  himself  no 
hope,  nor  anything  by  which  to  order  his  life.  There 
is  indeed  some  seed  of  nobility  in  our  nature,  for  we  can- 
not think  of  our  origin  or  end  and  not  be  spurred  to  con- 
sider and  desire  the  immortality  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
But  this  should  humiliate  us.  For  what  is  our  origin  but 
that  from  which  we  have  fallen?  And  what  is  our  end 
but  that  from  which  we  have  turned  away?  There  is 
nothing  but  to  groan  and  sigh  for  our  lost  dignity. 

It  is  well  to  know  how  man  was  first  created,  before  we 
consider  his  vices;  lest  we  be  led  to  impute  them  to  the 
Author  of  his  nature.  So  Calvin  sets  himself  to  this 
great  factitious  problem  of  Christian  doctrine.  And 
what  sentences  he  contributes,  contending  against  this 
slander  upon  God:  — 

"  Attendu  done  que  nous  voyons  la  chair  deslrer  tous  eschappa- 
toires,  [loopholes]  par  lesquelz  elle  pense  la  coulpe  de  ses  vices 
pouvoir  estre  transferee  allieurs:  il  fault  obvier  a  ceste  malice. 
II  est  done  besoing  de  traicter  tellement  la  calamite  du  genre  hu- 
main,  que  nous  couppions  la  broche  a  toutes  tergiversations  de 
nostre  chair;  et  que  la  justice  du  Seigneur  soit  delivree,  non  seule- 
ment  d'accusation,  mais  aussi  de  toute  reproche  et  murmure.  Ne- 
ant  moins  que  cela  se  face  en  telle  sorte,  que  nous  ne  declinions 
point  de  la  pure  verite." 

It  IS  certain  that  our  father  Adam  was  created  a  par- 
ticipant in  the  divine  wisdom,  righteousness,  virtue,  holi- 
ness and  truth.  By  his  ingratitude  he  effaced  the  divine 
image   which  he  bore;   and  ignorance,   weakness,    filth, 


412  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

vanity  and  Injustice  took  the  place  of  those  qualities  in 
him  and  in  his  descendants,  born  like  unto  him,  infected 
with  his  pollution.  Here  Calvin  pauses,  with  Augustine, 
to  thrash  the  beastly  Pelagians  who  held  that  this  original 
sin  was  transmitted  by  imitation,  and  not  through  gen- 
eration. It  is  enough  for  us  to  know,  that  as  God  set 
good  gifts  in  Adam  not  for  himself  alone,  but  for  all 
human  nature;  so  when  Adam  lost  them,  he  lost  them 
for  us  all.  And  with  clear  conviction  Calvin  declared 
original  sin  to  be  "  une  corruption  et  perversite  heredi- 
taire  de  nostre  nature,  laquelle  nous  faict  coulpables, 
premierement  de  Tire  de  Dieu,  puis  apres  produit  en 
nous  les  oeuvres,  que  I'Escriture  appelle  oeuvres  de  la 
chair:  .  .  .  adultaires,  paillardises,  larcins,  haynes, 
meutres,  et  gourmandises," —  the  list  taken  from  Paul. 
With  gathering  power  of  demonstration,  following  the 
good  Augustine,  he  shows  this  corruption  penetrating 
our  entire  nature,  becoming  our  very  selves: 

"nostre  nature  n'est  seulement  vuide  et  destitutee  de  tous  biens; 
mais  elle  est  tellement  fertille  en  tout  espece  de  mal,  qu'elle  ne 
peut  estre  oysive  .  .  .  C'est  que  toutes  les  parties  de  rhomme, 
depuis  rentendement  jusques  a  la  volunte,  depuls  Tame  jusques  a  la 
chair,  sont  souillees  et  du  tout  rempHes  de  cette  concupiscence,  ou 
blen,  pour  le  faire  plus  court,  que  rhomme  n'est  aultre  chose  de 
soymesme  que  corruption." 

Having  thus  delivered  himself,  Calvin  considers  how 
far  there  may  remain  in  man,  "  environne  de  misere  et 
necesslte,"  some  spark  of  freedom  and  desire  for  good;  a 
topic  which  leads  (as  in  the  Siimma  of  Aquinas)  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  human  faculties,  according  to  the  philos- 
ophers and  the  Doctors  of  the  Church.  With  them,  the 
Lombard  Is  cited,  and  St.  Bernard.  At  the  end,  Calvin 
abides  In  the  conviction  that  the  will  and  understanding 
are  bound  In  sin  and  Impotence,  requiring  the  '*  remede 
de  la  grace  de  Dieu,  par  laquelle  nostre  nature  vicleuse  est 
corrlgee."  Grace  Is  not  bestowed  on  all  men,  nor,  when 
given  to  one.  Is  It  bestowed  because  of  the  merit  of  his 
will,  but  through  the  free  gift  of  God,  whose  justice  may 


JOHN  CALVIN  413 

also  withhold  it.  And  Calvin  agrees  with  Augustine 
''  que  la  volunte  humaine  n'obtient  point  grace  par  sa 
liberte,  mais  obtient  liberte  par  la  grace  de  Dieu."  He 
follows  the  great  Father's  presentation  of  the 
further  offices  of  grace  in  reforming  and  strength- 
ening the  will;  discusses  points  of  view  from  which 
grace  may  be  regarded,  and  with  much  argu- 
ment shows  the  falsity  of  the  Pelagian  view  of  human 
liberty  and  merit,  and  upholds  the  position  of  Augustine. 
In  opposition  to  an  adverse  interpretation  of  the  parable 
of  the  man  who  fell  among  thieves,  he  makes  the  sound 
remark  touching  allegorical  interpretation :  *'  Les 
alegories  ne  doibvent  estre  receues,  si  non  d'autant  qu'elles 
sont  fondees  en  TEscrlture."  For  himself  he  will  admit 
that  the  human  soul  has  some  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
and  some  notion  that  there  is  a  God,  though  it  does  not 
know  him  aright.  Nothing  impugns  the  conclusions  of 
Saint  Augustine : 

"  C'est  que  les  dons  gratuitz,  qui  appartennent  a  salut,  on  este 
ostez  a  rhomme  apres  sa  cheute;  que  les  dons  naturelz,  qui  ne  le 
peuvent  conduire  a  salut,  ont  este  corrompus  et  pollus  .  .  .  que 
I'entendement  de  rhomme  est  tellement  du  tout  aliene  de  la  jus- 
tice de  Dieu,  qu'il  ne  peut  rien  imaginer,  concevoir,  ne  comprendre, 
sinon  toute  meschancete,  iniquite,  et  corruption.  Semblablement 
que  son  coeur  est  tant  envenime  de  peche,  qu'il  ne  peut  produire 
que  toute  perversite.  Et  s'il  advient  qu'il  en  sorte  quelque  chose, 
qui  ait  apparence  de  bien,  neantmoins  que  I'entendement  demeure 
tousjours  envelope  en  vanite,  le  coeur  adonne  a  tante  malice." 

Chapter  III  Is  devoted  to  God's  "  Loy  escrlte,"  given 
as  a  more  certain  witness  to  what  had  become  obscured 
In  the  "  loy  naturelle."  In  this  law  God  discloses  Him- 
self as  a  God  of  righteousness.  "  Mais  le  Seigneur,  non 
content  d'avoir  monstre,  en  quelle  reverence  nous  devons 
avoir  sa  justice,  a  fin  aussi  d'adonner  noz  coeurs  a  I'amour 
d'Icelle  [righteousness]  et  halne  d'inlqulte,  11  adjolnct 
des  promesses  et  menaces."  By  threats  and  promises, 
God  Incites  love  of  righteousness  in  the  hearts  of  the 
faithful  —  according  to  Calvin. 

Passing  over  this  chapter,  in  which  the  Ten  Command- 


414  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

ments  are  treated  at  length,  we  come  to  chapter  IV,  De  la 
Foy,  oil  le  Symbole  des  Apostres  est  expUcqiie.  Calvin 
accepts  the  Pauline  view;  since  we  cannot  fulfill  the  Law, 
our  only  way  to  escape  rejection  is  through  God's  com- 
passion, which  we  must  receive  in  firm  Faith,  and  rely 
upon  in  certain  hope.  He  will  consider  the  nature  of  the 
Faith  through  which  the  chosen  children  of  God  enter  His 
Kingdom.  It  is  not  the  "  credulite  vulgaire  "  with  which 
one  assents  to  the  statements  of  the  Gospel.  That  such 
suffices  is  a  pernicious  opinion  taught  by  the  "  Sophistes  et 
Sorbonistes,"  who  also  add  '*  je  ne  scay  quelle  distinction 
frivole  de  la  foy  formee  et  informe,"  a  distinction,  by  the 
way,  not  lightly  treated  by  the  great  Aquinas,  whom  Cal- 
vin does  not  mention  here.  For  faith  we  must  turn  to  the 
Word  of  God,  which  is  faith's  end  and  object,  the  mirror 
where  it  beholds  and  contemplates  God,  and  seeks  and 
trusts  His  will,  gaining  a  knowledge  of  His  compassion, 
in  which  the  heart  of  man,  touched  by  grace,  may  indubit- 
ably repose.  And  Calvin  gives  as  the  "  pleine  "  definition 
of  faith:  "  une  ferme  ct  certaine  cognoissance  de  la  bonne 
volunte  de  Dieu  envers  nous :  laquelle  estant  fondee  sur  la 
promesse  gratuite  donnee  en  Jesus  Christ,  est  revelee  a 
nostre  entendement,  et  scellee  en  nostre  coeur  par  le  Sainct 
Esprit."  If  Calvin  had  not  thus  kept  his  discussion 
austere  and  intellectual,  carefully  avoiding  the  word 
"  love,"  he  would  have  come  closer  to  the  jides  formata  of 
Aquinas. 2^  Calvin's  faith  is  an  intellectual  certitude. 
"  Certes  la  Foy  ne  gist  point  en  ignorance;  mais  en  cog- 
noissance " ;  and  it  does  not  lie  in  reverence  for  the 
Church.  He  passes  on  to  discuss  each  phrase  of  his  defi- 
nition, and  next  takes  up  the  successive  clauses  of  the 
Apostles'  Creed. 

In  the  fifth  chapter  Calvin  turns  to  the  subject  of  Peni- 
tence, which  not  only  "  est  conjoincte  a  la  Foy,  mais  aussi 
en  est  engendree."  He  is  scandalized  at  "  the  fasts  and 
other  things  "  by  which  the  monks  and  schoolmen,  with 
Peter  Lombard,  their  captain,  have  stuffed  their  books. 

25  Cf.  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  Vol.  II,  p.  510. 


JOHN  CALVIN  415 

And  he  launches  a  grand  attack  on  the  likewise  time-hon- 
ored Purgatory,  which  is  but  a  fiction  of  Satan,  built  of 
blasphemies  against  the  full  and  sufficient  sacrifice  made  by 
Christ.     Other  reformers  had  been  silent  here ; 

*■  Mais  quand  la  purgation  des  pechez  se  cerche  aillieurs  qu'en 
Christ,  quand  la  satisfaction  est  transferree  autre  part,  qu'  a  luy,  il 
est  dangereux  de  se  taire.  II  fault  done  cryer  a  haulte  voix,  que 
purgatoire  est  une  fiction  pernicieuse  de  Sathan;  laquelle  faict  un 
opprobre  trop  grand  a  la  misericorde  de  Dieu,  aneantit  la  croix  de 
Christ,  dissipe  et  subvertit  nostre  foy.  Car  qu'est-ce  que  leur  est 
purgatoire,  sinon  une  peine  que  souffrent  les  ames  des  trespassez,  en 
satisfaction  de  leur  pechez  ?  Tellement  que  si  on  oste  la  phantasie 
de  satisfaire,  leur  purgatoire  s'en  va  bas.  Or  si  de  ce  que  nous 
avons  par  cy  devant  dispute,  il  est  faict  plus  que  manifeste  que  le 
sang  de  Christ  est  une  seule  purgation,  oblation,  et  satisfaction 
pour  les  pechez  de  fideles,  que  reste-il  plus  sinon  que  le  purgatoire 
soit  un  pur  et  horrible  blasphesme  contre  Jesus  Christ  ?  " 

Perhaps  Calvin  never  showed  more  boldly  his  clear  con- 
sistency of  reason  than  in  this  hazardous  attack  upon  the 
doctrine  of  Purgatory,  so  dear  and  so  natural  to  the 
stumbling  faith  of  those  who  know  themselves  unfit  for 
heaven. 

The  sixth  chapter  takes  up  the  cardinal  topic.  Justifica- 
tion by  Faith  and  the  merits  of  works,  "  le  principal  article 
de  la  religion  Chrestienne."  We  need  not  follow  Cal- 
vin through  his  elaboration  of  the  favorite  theme  of  the 
Reform.  His  position  is  defined  in  an  opening  sentence : 
Since  most  men  imagine  a  mixed  righteousness  of  faith  and 
works  —  "  imaginent  une  justice  meslee  de  la  Foy  et  des 
oeuvres,  monstrons  aussi,  devant  que  passer  oultre,  que  la 
justice  de  Foy  [the  righteousness  of  or  through  Faith] 
differe  tellement  de  celle  des  oeuvres,  que  si  I'une  est  es- 
tablie,  I'autre  est  renversee."  This  assuredly  is  Paul,  and 
this  is  Calvin.  And  at  the  end  of  the  long  chapter  we 
note  the  conclusion  of  the  argument  whereby  one  who  has 
been  guilty  of  the  breach  of  any  one  command  is  worthy 
of  death, — "  entant  qu'il  a  offense  la  majeste  de  Dieu," 
he  is  guilty  of  them  all.  The  righteousness  by  works  — 
"  la  justice  des  oeuvres  est  une  parfaicte  obeyssance  de  la 


4i6  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Loy  .  .  .  une  observation  entlere  et  consommee  de  ia 
volunte  de  Dieu."  Obviously  impossible :  hence  there  can 
be  no  righteousness,  no  justification,  through  works. 
This  is  the  Pauline  conclusion,  not  easy  for  every  stomach 
to  digest. 

Passing  over  the  next  chapter,  in  which  polemically,  and 
with  scholastic  narrowness,  Calvin  discusses  the  difference 
between  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  we  reach  another 
pillar  of  his  system,  Predestination,  a  doctrine  in  its  two- 
fold terror  unto  salvation  or  damnation,  necessitated  by 
God's  foreknowledge  of  the  Fall  of  Man  with  its  entail- 
ment of  corruption,  and  the  justification,  through  Faith, 
of  the  elect.^^  So  long  as  election  unto  salvation,  with 
Paul,  with  Augustine,  was  accepted,  to  flinch  before  the 
converse  election  of  the  rest  of  men  to  hell  was  but  an 
amiable  weakness  unjustified  by  the  logic  of  the  situation. 
And  to-day  in  an  age  when  science  will  not  blench  before 
the  grim  facts  of  the  natural  world,  and  recognizes  the 
equal  grimness  of  human  social  fact,  we  need  not  stammer 
over  this  theology,  which  seems  to  reflect  the  ways  of 
nature,  and  present  a  divine  analogue  to  the  teeth  and 
fangs  of  life.  And  even  as  to  election,  predestination, 
why  go  back  to  Eden  and  the  Fall  of  Man?  We  see  elec- 
tion in  ourselves  and  those  about  us,  rich  and  poor,  the 
gifted  and  degenerate,  saints  and  criminals.  Did  they 
make  their  characters,  their  faculties,  their  circumstances, 
which  raise  or  damn  them?  Is  there  not  a  surfeit  of  elec- 
tion here?  And  of  the  double  predestination  to  heaven 
and  hell,  so  far  as  concerns  this  world?  Yet  —  here  we 
stammer  —  the  good  man  or  the  wise  man  steers  his  life 
through  perils  which  are  seen  and  through  others  utterly 
unseen  by  him.  Whether  his  barque  is  wrecked  or  not, 
seems  chance;  and  yet  somehow  he  steers. 

Calvin  did  not  stammer;  but,  with  unamiable  logic,  ac- 
cepted the  double  predestination  of  mankind  to  heaven 
and  hell,  according  to  the  good  pleasure  and  righteous  will 

20  One  queries  just  when  this  doctrine  of  the  double  predestination 
seized  upon  Calvin.  There  is  next  to  nothing  about  it  in  the  Institute  of 
1536,  while  it  is  full  fledged  in  the  editions  of  1539  and  1541. 


JOHN  CALVIN  417 

of  God.  He  acknowledged  predestination  to  be  a  difficult 
matter,  easily  obscured.  Let  faithful  inquirers  be  admon- 
ished, and  first  of  all  remember  that  when  they  "  enquier- 
ent  de  la  predestination,  ils  entrent  au  Sanctuaire  de  la 
sagesse  divine."  The  overbold  and  curious  will  find  it  a 
labyrinth  with  no  escape.  "  Les  secretz  de  sa  [God's] 
volunte,  qu'il  a  pense  estre  bon  de  nous  communiquer,  il 
nous  les  a  testifiez  en  sa  paroUe  —  la  voye  unique,  la  seule 
lumiere  "  to  conduct  us  through  what  it  is  allowed  us  to 
discern  of  this  deep  matter:  "  sortiz  des  limites  de 
I'Escriture,  nous  cheminerons  hors  du  chemin  et  en 
tenebres."  We  need  have  no  shame  "  d'ignorer  quelque 
chose  en  ceste  matiere,  ou  il  y  a  quelque  ignorance  plus 
docte  que  le  scavoir  " —  the  last  phrase  reminiscent  of 
Nicholas  of  Cusa.     But,  continues  Calvin  very  finely, 

"  II  fault  done  garder,  d'empescher  les  fideles  d'enquerir  ce  qui  est 
contenu  en  I'Escriture,  de  la  predestination  a  fin  qu'il  ne  semble,  ou 
que  nous  les  veuillions  frauder  du  bien  que  Dieu  leur  communique, 
ou  que  nous  veuillions  arguer  le  sainct  Esprit,  comme  s'il  avoit 
public  les  choses,  qu'il  estoit  bon  de  supprimer.  Permettons  done  a 
I'homme  Chrestien  d'ouvrir  les  aureilles  et  I'entendement  a  toute 
la  doctrine  qui  luy  est  addressee  de  Dieu;  moyennant  qu'il  garde 
tousjours  ceste  temperance,  que  quand  il  voirra  la  sacree  bouche 
de  Dieu  fermee,  il  se  ferme  aussi  le  chemin  d'enquerir." 

And  much  more  follows  which  in  its  power  and  narrow- 
ness may  recall  Milton:  —  even  as  in  his  language  this 
same  Calvin  reminds  us  of  his  stylistic  child  Pascal :  "  La 
vie  humaine  est  environnee,  et  quasi  assiegee  de  miseres 
infinies."  Might  that  not  have  fallen  from  the  immortal 
Pense  es  ? 

He  excels  in  definitions  in  this  chapter.  For  instance : 
"  nous  appelons  Predestination  le  conseil  eternel  de  Dieu 
par  lequel  il  a  determine  ce  qu'il  vouloit  faire  d'un  chascun 
homme.  Car  11  ne  les  cree  pas  tous  en  pareille  condition: 
mais  ordonne  les  uns  a  vie  eternelle  les  autres  a  eternelle 
damnation.  AInsi  selon  la  fin  a  laquelle  est  cree  I'homme, 
nous  disons  qu'il  est  predestine  a  mort  ou  a  vie."  Natu- 
rally, his  argument  follows  Augustine;  and  he  passes 
through  the  deep  waters  of  God's  will  covering  murder 


4i8  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  rapine,  and  wrestles  with  the  equally  difficult  problem, 
why  men  should  plan  and  pray  and  strive,  seeing  that 
everything  in  their  lives  is  predestined.  Even  Calvin  can- 
not make  this  quite  clear; — there  are  limits  to  the  con- 
sistency of  every  thinker.  But  practically  and  religiously, 
he  transforms  predestination  into  trust  in  God;  which  in- 
deed had  been  Calvin's  rock  before  he  laid  hold  upon  pre- 
destination. To  him  and  his  followers  had  come  the 
power  of  those  who  know  that  no  harm  can  break  the 
guard  of  God's  protection.  Their  courage,  their  energy, 
their  strength,  were  doubled  through  faith  in  God's  pur- 
poses with  them, —  and  with  their  evil  enemies  I  The 
Lord  is  my  helper!  True  it  is,  as  Calvin  says,  and  ought 
to  know,  that  the  doctrine  of  predestination  neither  shakes 
nor  troubles  faith,  but  strengthens  it,  at  least,  for  men  of 
faith  and  power. 

This  is  abundantly  confirmed  by  the  next  chapter  upon 
Prayer.  Beautifully  the  opening  paragraph  declares 
that,  knowing  his  own  impotence,  man  if  he  would  have 
succour  in  his  need,  should  seek  it  beyond  himself.  How 
generously  has  God  given  us  of  Himself  in  his  son  Jesus 
Christ;  through  him  offering  us  happiness  for  our  misery, 
and  riches  for  our  poverty:  to  the  end  that  our  Faith  shall 
look  to  His  dear  Son,  and  our  strength  and  hope  repose  in 
Him.  ^'  Ceste  est  une  secrete,  occulte,  et  cachee  philos- 
ophic, laquelle  ne  se  peut  entendre  par  syllogismes;  mais 
ceux  la  comprennent  ausquelz  nostre  Seigneur  a  ouvert 
les  yeux,  a  fin  que  en  sa  lumiere,  ilz  voyent  clairement." 
Calvin's  heart  had  its  arcana,  where  logic  did  not  enter: 
though  logic  is  present  with  him  when  in  this  same  chapter 
he  shows  that  prayer  should  not  be  offered  to  the  saints. 

The  following  chapter  on  the  Sacraments  is  incisive. 
Only  baptism  is  recognized  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  A 
Sacrament  is  defined  as  "  un  signe  exterieur,  par  lequel 
nostre  Seigneur  nous  represente  et  testifie  sa  bonne 
volunte  envers  nous,  pour  soustenir  et  confermer  I'imbe- 
cillite  de  nostre  Foy."  Calvin  goes  very  far  toward 
utterly  rejecting  the  magic-mystery  element,  which  from 
the  time  of  the  early  Church  had  made  the  sacraments  into 


JOHN  CALVIN  419 

life-giving  miracles,  regularly  administered.  He  teaches 
that  in  the  Lord's  Supper  we  are  spiritually  fed  with  the 
body  and  blood  of  our  Lord,  and  assured  that  his  body 
once  given  for  us  is  ours  forever,  and  that  we  possess 
Christ  crucified.  As  for  the  thorny  question,  how  we 
possess  him, —  "  pensons  premierement  que  c'est  une 
chose  spirituelle  que  la  Sacrement;  par  lequel  nostre  Seig- 
neur n'a  pas  voulu  repaistre  noz  ventres,  mais  noz 
ames.  ...  En  somme  contentons-nous  de  I'avoir  spirit- 
uellement."  Calvin  rejects  transubstantiation,  and  the 
actual  physical  presence  of  the  body  of  Christ, —  thuS;  ad- 
vancing beyond  Luther.  Mightily  he  thunders  against 
the  Mass  as  a  sacrifice  and  oblation:  the  Saviour  offered 
once  and  for  all  a  sacrifice  upon  the  cross,  the  efficacy  of 
which  endures  forever. 

We  come  to  the  fourteenth  chapter,  which  Calvin  in  the 
edition  of  1559  transferred  to  his  discussion  of  predestina- 
tion (Book  III,  ch.  XXIV) .  It  sets  forth  the  freedom  of 
the  Christian  from  the  servitude  of  the  Law:  first,  in  that 
the  assurance  of  his  Justification  rises  above  the  Law  and 
its  righteousness;  secondly,  in  that  his  conscience  is  not 
bound  by  the  Law,  but,  having  been  delivered  from  its 
yoke,  freely  obeys  the  will  of  God;  thirdly,  in  that  he  will 
not  make  external  things  a  matter  of  conscience  before 
God. 

"  Or  il  fault  diligement  considerer  que  la  liberte  Chrestienne  en 
toutes  ces  parties,  est  une  chose  spirituelle:  de  laquelle  toute  la 
force  gist  a  pacifier  envers  Dieu  les  consciences  timldes,  solt  qu'elles 
travalllent  en  doubtant  de  la  remission  de  leurs  pechez,  solt  qu'elles 
solent  en  solicitude  et  cralnte,  a  scavoir  si  leurs  oeuvres,  imparfalctes 
et  souillees  des  macules  de  leur  chair,  sont  aggreables  a  Dieu,  solt 
qu'elles  solent  Incertalnes  de  I'usage  des  choses  Indifferentes.  Pour- 
tant  elle  est  mal  prlnse  de  ceux,  ou  qui  en  veulent  colorer  leur 
cupidlte  charnelle  pour  abuser  des  dons  de  Dieu  a  leur  volupte; 
ou  qui  pensent  ne  I'avoir  point,  s'llz  ne  I'usurpent  devant  les  hom- 
mes;  et  pourtant  en  I'usage  d'Icelle  ilz  n'ont  nul  esgard  a  leurs 
freres  Infirmes." 

All  of  which  is  excellent  Pauline  teaching. 

Such  freedom  would  seem  to  be  made  vain  by  subjection 


420  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

to  men.  Yet  to  set  ourselves  above  human  laws  would 
cause  much  evil.  One  must  therefore  distinguish  be- 
tween what  is  spiritual,  belonging  to  the  things  of  God, 
and  what  is  political  or  civil;  the  first  pertaining  to  the  life 
of  the  soul,  the  second  to  the  present  life,  enabling  men  to 
live  justly  and  decently,  and  having  to  do  with  "  meurs 
exterieures."  Such  are  the  respective  functions  of  these 
two,  "  Tune  Royaume  spirituel,  et  I'autre  Civil  on 
politicq." 

Calvin  argued  doughtily  throughout  his  life  upon  the 
distinctness  of  Church  and  State;  yet  his  policy  sought  to 
unite  them  in  the  common  service  of  God.  He  drew 
something  from  the  constitution  and  history  of  Geneva, 
where  bishopric  and  town  had  the  same  boundaries,  and 
the  functions  of  one  and  the  other  overlapped.  But  in 
maintaining  the  liberty  of  the  Church,  he  tended  to  super- 
impose its  authority  upon  the  State.  If  both  Church 
and  State  unite  in  their  object  of  right  belief  and  conduct, 
and  both  have  God  as  their  lawgiver  and  sovereign,  the 
Church,  being:  concerned  with  the  immortal  soul,  is  supe- 
rior to  the  State,  which  more  immediately  administers 
temporal  affairs.  Thus  the  Calvinistic  religious  element 
tends,  if  not  to  dominate  politics,  at  all  events  to  direct 
them.  At  the  same  time  the  possibly  opposing  presence 
of  two  organisms  exerted  reciprocal  restraint,  and  tended 
to  prevent  the  tyranny  of  either.  In  their  righteous  union 
of  purpose,  and  restraint  upon  the  abuses  or  usurpations 
on  the  part  of  either,  the  Calvinistic  Church  and  State 
promoted  the  development  of  civic  liberty  and  function  in 
those  who  were  members  as  much  of  one  as  of  the  other. 
The  weapon  of  the  Church  was  disapproval,  censure,  ex- 
communication in  the  end,  which  cut  off  the  recalcitrant 
civilian  from  all  that  he  respected.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  actual  application  of  physical  punishment,  constraint, 
or  banishment  or  death,  was  with  the  State,  and  might  be 
brought  to  bear  even  upon  the  too  intolerable  ministers  of 
the  Word. 

Calvin  conceived  the  Church  to  consist  of  all  the  elect  of 
God,  the  dead,  the  living  and  the  yet  unborn.     It  is  one, 


JOHN  CALVIN  421 

inasmuch  as  Christ  cannot  be  divided;  and  no  one  is 
saved  who  Is  not  a  member  of  It.  It  Implies  "  the  Com- 
munion of  the  Saints,"  Inasmuch  as  those  who  are  one  In 
the  fellowship  of  Christ,  Impart  to  each  other  the  divers 
spiritual  gifts  bestowed  on  them  by  God.  The  marks  of 
the  Church  are  the  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God  and 
the  administration  of  the  Sacraments  through  Its  min- 
isters, and  the  mode  of  life,  vitae  exemplum,  shown  by 
those  who  are  truly  its  members.  Its  visible  and  efficient 
union  is  preserved  by  its  chosen  ministers,  whose  election 
properly  issues  from  the  people  and  Is  sanctioned  by  the 
approval  of  those  who  are  already  ministers.  Visibly  or- 
ganized in  this  manner,  each  church  has  charge  over  the 
conduct  of  its  members,  and  authority  to  reprove  and  ex- 
communicate, whereby  it  warns  the  member  of  his  final 
condemnation  before  God.  The  purpose  of  excommuni- 
cation is  that  those  who  lead  scandalous  and  wicked  lives 
shall  not  be  counted  among  Christians,  and  corrupt  the 
good;  but  rather  that  they  be  turned  to  repentance. 

This  true  and  universal  church  exercising  Its  due  au- 
thority, is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Papacy  and  its 
corruption  of  ecclesiastical  power;  which  Calvin  char- 
acterizes in  his  fifteenth  chapter,  De  la  Puissance  Ec- 
clesiastique?'^  The  usurpations  of  the  Roman  Church 
would  "  imposer  necesslte  aux  consciences,  ez  choses 
desquelles  elles  sont  affranchies  par  Jesus  Christ."  That 
Church  has  succeeded  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Law.  "  II 
fault  qu'elles  [the  consciences  of  Christians]  recongnois- 
sent  pour  leur  Roy  un  seul  Christ  leur  LIberateur  et 
qu'elles  soyent  gouvernees  par  la  seule  Loy  de  llberte, 
qui  est  la  sacre  parolle  de  I'Evanglle,  si  elles  veulent 
retenir  la  grace  qu'elles  ont  une  fols  obtenue  en  Jesus 
Christ.  Et  qu'elles  ne  soyent  assubjectles  a  servitude 
aucune."  So  Calvin  would  hold  his  church  and  people 
free  from  those  burdens  which  St.  Paul  said  should  not  be 
laid  on  men's  consciences.  He  would  reject  "  toutes  les 
constitutions    qui    sont    aujourd'huy    nommees    eccleslas- 

27  Here  we  return  to  the  French  edition  of  1541.  In  the  last  two  or 
three  pages  we  have  drawn  from  the  edition  of  1559. 


422  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

tiques."  Authority  is  granted  to  the  Church  as  St.  Paul 
says,  for  edification,  not  for  destruction.  And  Calvin 
denounces  the  usurpations  of  power  to  make  new  articles 
of  faith  and  assert  for  the  Church  and  its  tradition  an  au- 
thority equal  or  superior  to  Scripture.  The  tyranny  of 
human  traditions  lays  such  inventions  falsely  on  the 
Church,  and  causes  it  to  transgress  the  command  of  God. 
In  chapter  XVI,  Du  Goiivemement  Civil ^  Calvin  turns 
to  that  authority  whose  function  is  the  administration  of 
civil  justice,  decency  and  order.  There  are  those  who 
when  they  hear  of  a  liberty  assured  in  Christ,  think  they 
have  no  fruit  of  it  so  long  as  they  see  any  authority  set 
over  them;  they  would  alter  the  world,  and  abolish  laws 
and  magistrates,  by  whom  they  deem  their  liberty  im- 
pugned. "  Mais  celui  qui  scaura  discerner  entre  le  corps 
et  Tame,  entre  ceste  presente  vie  transitoire,  et  la  vie 
advenir,  qui  est  eternelle,  il  entendra  pareillement  assez 
clairement,  que  le  Royaume  spirituel  de  Christ,  et  I'ordon- 
nance  civile,  sont  choses  fort  differentes."  The  latter  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  would  be 
needless  there.  Its  purpose  —  "  le  but  de  ce  regime  tem- 
porel  est,  de  nous  fere  conformer  a  la  campaignie  des 
hommes,  pour  le  temps  qu'avons  a  vivre  entre  les  hommes; 
d'instituer  noz  meurs  a  une  justice  civile;  de  nous  accorder 
les  uns  avec  les  autres;  d'entretenir  et  conserver  une  paix 
et  tranquility  commune."  Therefore,  following  the  ex- 
ample of  Christ,  we  should  have  respect  for  magistrates, 
who  are  made  protectors  of  public  tranquiUity  and  de- 
cency, and  the  common  peace  and  safety.  Further,  the 
tributes  and  imposts  set  by  princes  are  their  legitimate 
revenue,  which  they  should  use  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
State.  We  should  obey  the  laws,  and  recognize  even 
wicked  kings  and  rulers,  and  obey  them  so  long  as  we  do 
not  thereby  disobey  God.  The  Lord  is  King  of  Kings: 
"  Nous  devons  puis  apres  estre  subjectz  aux  hommes  qui 
ont  preeminence  sur  nous;  mais  non  autrement  sinon  en 
luy  [Christ]."  An  enormous  and  elastic  reservation  this, 
as  the  Roman  world  had  learned  from  the  early  Church, 


JOHN  CALVIN  423 

and  as  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  were  also 
to  learn,  with  much  spilling  of  blood. ^^ 

In  his  last  chapter,  De  la  Vie  Chrestienne,  Calvin  sets 
the  general  rule,  that  we  should  imitate  Christ,  and  show 
forth  his  image  in  our  lives.  If  we  cannot  be  perfect,  we 
should  strive  to  "  tendre  a  la  perfection  que  Dieu  nous 
commande."  It  is  a  chapter  of  Christian  morals  and 
piety,  suited  to  a  time  of  stress  and  tribulation.  At  the 
close  a  special  emphasis  is  laid  upon  vocation,  which  God 
has  commanded  us  to  regard  in  all  the  acts  of  life  and 
to  keep  our  own  "  estatz  et  manieres  de  vivre."  One 
should  not  exceed  or  go  beyond:  for  example,  it  is  not  for 
a  private  man  to  presume  to  kill  a  tyrant.  But  there  also 
lay  in  this  conception  of  vocation  the  power  of  the  call  of 
God,  which  in  this  man  Calvin  spoke  masterfully  to  kings 
and  princes,  and  moulded  a  religious  revolution. 

We  leave  the  Institute,  to  view  Calvin's  work  more  gen- 
erally. Out  of  the  small  distracted  city  of  Geneva,  he 
created  a  model  church-state,  in  Avhich  the  morals,  beliefs 
and  energies  of  the  people  were  held  at  the  pitch  of  effi- 
ciency. If  pleasure-lovers  sharply  were  restrained,  and 
impediments  set  upon  the  free  intellectual  action  of  indi- 
viduals, at  least  it  was  done  by  the  will  of  the  people, 
effectuated  through  this  dual  communal  organism.  Yet, 
while  he  lived,  Calvin's  masterful  genius  could  not  but 
make  him  autocratic;  and  his  direction  of  affairs  promoted 
the  welfare  of  the  town.  He  lent  the  acumen  of  his  mind 
and  legal  training  to  a  codification  of  the  city's  laws,  and 
to  the  best  adjustment  of  its  taxes.  He  taught  that  it 
was  not  usury  to  accept  reasonable  interest  upon  money 
loaned;  an  economic  recognition  greatly  to  the  commercial 

28  Paul  F.  M.  Mealy,  Les  Publicists  de  la  Reforme  (Paris,  1903),  gives 
the  political  ideas  of  the  French  reformers  after  Calvin,  showing  their 
departure  from  his  quasi-pacific  doctrines.  After  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew  (1572),  Hotman,  de  Beze  and  Marnay  turned  to  the  idea 
that  authority  is  from  the  people,  who  can  revoke  it  when  abused.  Under 
God,  the  people  are  sovereign,  and  from  them  a  delegated  authority 
passes  to  King  and  magistrates.  They  perceived  the  importance  of  the 
representative  assembly;  and  their  ideas  influenced  Englishmen. 


424  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

advantage  of  the  Reformed.  The  city's  health  was  the 
better  for  his  aid  In  the  construction  of  sewers  and  the 
erection  of  hospitals.  He  concerned  himself  with 
methods  of  heating  and  protection  against  fires;  through 
him  the  weaving  Industry  was  revived.  His  latest  years 
brought  the  establishment  of  an  Academy,  through  whose 
eager  scholars  his  Influence  and  the  fame  of  Geneva  were 
spread  through  France  and  England.  It  Is  hard  to  say 
what  the  city  did  not  in  some  way  owe  to  her  Illustrious 
minister. 

Looking  from  Geneva  to  France,  we  see  In  Calvin  a 
second  Paul,  taking  on  himself  the  care  of  all  the  churches. 
It  Is  he  who  organizes  them;  who  moulds  and  formulates 
their  beliefs;  regulates  their  conduct,^^  who  mediates  their 
differences;  who  upholds  their  courage  under  persecution. 
His  letters  to  the  French  martyrs  take  us  back  to  exhorta- 
tions from  the  persecuted  churches  of  the  second  century, 
whose  situation  was  reproduced  In  the  decimated,  but  ever 
growing,  reformed  churches  of  France.^^  Or  again  In  his 
letters  one  might  think  to  hear  St.  Bernard  speaking  In  the 
case  of  some  little  monk  whose  parents  would  not  have 
him  so  robustly  fight  for  Christ.  To  a  cautious  friend 
who  unobtrusively  favored  the  Reform,  and  would  have 
his  more  ardent  son  act  with  like  prudence,  Calvin,  almost 
in  Bernard's  words,  writes  "  si  vous  estes  froid  et  tardlf 
a  sortir  de  I'abysme  ou  vous  estes  plonge,  pour  le  molns 
ne  portez  pas  envie  a  vous  enfans  si  DIeu  les  en  dellvre 
.  .  .  .  Vous  ne  debvez  estre  marri  [disturbed]  que 
I'authorlte  de  DIeu  solt  preferee  a  vostre  contentment."  '^^ 

It  was  wonderful  how  sure  he  was  that  he  was  right, 
in  the  spirit  of  those  who  from  all  Christian  times  have 
been  ready  to  die  for  their  faith,  and  to  glorify  God.  It 
seems  also  wonderful  to  us,  (as  If  we  again  were  listening 
to  Augustine  answering  queries)  what  remarkable  things 
this  sixteenth  century  man  of  God  conceived  himself  to 
know.      He  writes  in  a  letter,  "  Aux  cinq  prisonniers  de 

29  See   e.g.   Bonnet,   Lettres   de  Jean   Calvin,   I,   p.   213,   II,   p.   311-320, 
"  Aux  fideles  de  France." 

2^  See  Bonnet,  Lettres  de  Jean  Calvin,  II,  pp.  182,  298,  301. 

31  Bonnet,  o.  c.  II,  p.  285.     Compare  The  Mediaeval  Mind,  I,  p.  415. 


JOHN  CALVIN  425 

Lyon,"  who  had  reason  to  inquire  of  such  matters: 
"  Touchant  de  la  nature  d'un  corps  glorifie,  vray  est  que 
les  qualitez  sont  changees,  mais  non  pas  toutes."  ^^ 

Calvin  had  developed  his  system  under  German  influ- 
ence at  Strasbourg;  it  came  to  its  full  flower  only  in 
Geneva,  where  it  could  work  itself  out  actually,  soul  and 
body,  Calvinistic  Church  and  State.  But  it  w^as  a  product 
of  the  French  mind,  of  the  French  faculty  of  undeviating 
logical  thinking  and  expression.  Yet  it  was  not  to  prove 
permanently  suited  to  the  French  character,  or  adaptable 
to  French  institutions.  In  France,  it  showed  capacity  for 
organization  in  the  face  of  persecution,  comparable  to  that 
of  the  early  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  also  amaz- 
ing fighting  energy  against  overwhelming  power.  But 
there  it  could  never  reach  that  full  dual  church-and-state 
development  which  it  attained  under  Calvinistic  govern- 
ments, as  in  Scotland,  and  for  a  time  in  England.  Only 
under  such  concurring  conditions  could  all  its  possibilities 
be  actualized. ^^ 

2-  Bonnet,  o.  c.  I,  p.  343. 

33  To  pass  beyond  the  boundaries  of  France,  and  her  wars  of  religion, 
and  follow  the  influence  of  Calvin  in  the  Low  Countries,  in  Scotland  and 
in  England,  would  require  a  history  of  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  a  history  of  the  seventeenth  in  the  New  World  as  well  as  in 
the  Old.  Calvin  "  knit  the  forces  of  non-Lutheran  Protestantism  into  a 
real  spiritual  communion  animated  by  similar  ideals  and  dominated  by 
one  view  of  the  Christian  life.  The  ill-related  Reformation  movements 
of  France,  of  the  Netherlands,  of  Scotland,  to  a  less  degree  of  Poland  and 
Hungary,  found  in  him  their  unifying  force.  He  gave  them  creed,  disci- 
pline, and  organisation.  He  formulated  their  theology.  He  inspired  their 
martyr-courage.  He  taught  them  how  best  to  oppose  Rome.  He  trained 
many  of  their  leaders,  provided  them  a  city  of  refuge  in  persecution,  and 
an  example  of  a  disciplined  Christian  communitv  which  attracted  their 
admiration  and  imitation.  Over  all  this  vast  region  he  exercised  an  un- 
oflicial  but  far-reaching  episcopate.  By  constant  correspondence,  by  per- 
sonal acquaintance  and  appeal  to  those  whom  he  never  met 
face  to  face,  by  the  labours  of  those  who  had  been  his  pupils  and  re- 
produced his  spirit,  he  moulded  the  growth  and  determined  the  form  of 
the  Reformation  movement  to  a  degree  comparable  with  the  work  of  no 
other  among  the  reformers  save  Luther.  But  for  him  the  story  of  the  Re- 
formation outside  of  the  land  of  its  birth  would  have  been  vastly  different. 
.  .  .  [His]  authority  was  not  due  to  ofhce  or  peculiar  advantage  of  sta- 
tion. It  was  purely  one  of  mind  over  mind.  But  it  was  all  the  more 
real  and  long  enduring.  Calvin  so  impressed  his  interpretation  of  Chris- 
tian truth  and  of  the  Christian  life  upon  men  that  they  thought  his 
thoughts  after  him,  and  his  ideas  became  part  of  the  mental  fabric  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  central  and  western  Europe,  and  ulti- 
mately of  North  America. 


426  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

Nevertheless  in  France,  as  well  as  In  Great  Britain  and 
Massachusetts  Bay,  Calvinism  was  an  educational  disci- 
pline, teaching  men  to  know  the  Bible,  training  them  to 
think  straight  and  true,  and  giving  them  courage  to  apply 
their  logic  to  religion,  to  government  and  to  society.  It 
carried  tremendous  educational  value  as  a  discipline  and 
sharpening  of  the  mind.  Further;  it  represented  a 
heightening  and  an  increase  of  the  effective  validity  of 
thought.  If  its  specific  tenets  are  no  longer  held  by  en- 
lightened people,  it  was  in  its  time  a  most  specific  enlight- 
enment in  religion,  piercing  through  superstitions  and  the 
distortions  of  the  glosses  of  tradition,  to  the  text  and  sig- 
nificance of  Scripture.  It  was  a  way  out  from  the  pit. 
Intellectual  advance  may  relate  directly  to  religion  and  to 
ultimate  conceptions  of  the  relationship  between  God  and 
man.  It  need  not  be  directly  concerned  with  secular  tem- 
poralities, with  physical  science,  or  with  belles  lettres. 
Yet  Calvin  himself,  in  the  entire  compass  of  his  knowl- 
edge, might  perhaps  be  held  the  most  notable  scholar  of 
his  age,  surpassing  all  men  in  the  keenness  of  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible,  and  with  splendid  training  in  law  and 
in  classical  scholarship.  So  far  as  relates  to  this  large 
compass  of  his  learning,  he  was  a  humanist;  though  never 
a  humanist  in  the  sense  of  regarding  the  humanities  as  in 
themselves  an  end.  Instead,  he  was  a  Deist;  his  end  was 
God,  and  the  glory  of  God,  reflected  downward  through 
restoring  grace  freely  given  to  obedient  and  adoring  men, 
that  is  to  the  elect.  In  the  otherwise  ineradicable  cor- 
ruption of  man's  nature,  there  was  no  good  thing,  save 
what  came  with  this  freely  imparted  saving  grace  of  God. 

Rabelais  and  Calvin,  those  two  greatest  of  contempo- 
rary Frenchmen,  peers  in  knowledge  and  in  mental  grasp ; 

"  The  influence  of  Calvinism,  for  more  than  a  century  after  the  death 
of  the  Genevan  reformer,  was  the  most  potent  force  in  Western  Europe 
in  the  development  of  civil  liberty.  What  the  modern  world  owes  to  it  is 
almost  incalculable.  Yet  Calvin  was  never  by  intention  a  political  re- 
former. His  interests  were  always  overwhelmingly  religious;  and  the 
results  of  Calvinism  in  the  cause  of  religious  freedom  were  the  indirect 
and  unexpected,  rather  than  the  anticipated  consequences  of  his  work. 
They  were  the  effect  of  the  logic  of  Calvin's  principles,  rather  than  any 
conscious  part  of  his  reformatory  aim."  W.  Walker,  John  Calvin,  pp. 
402-404. 


JOHN  CALVIN  427 

in  their  different  ways  both  set  against  the  superstitions 
and  corruptions  of  the  Church; — is  it  not  interesting  to 
observe  their  far  more  fundamental  and  universal  oppo- 
sition? The  understanding  and  acceptance  of  life  by 
Rabelais  and  by  Calvin  were  in  mortal  conflict.  The  one 
held  all  human  life,  including  every  positive  element  of  it, 
to  be  good  and  utterly  desirable;  the  other  held  humanity 
to  be  vile  and  diseased,  until  restored  and  changed  by  the 
injection  of  what  was  not  human,  but  from  God.  Rabe- 
lais was  as  comprehensive  and  tolerant  in  his  temperament 
as  in  his  mind.  Calvin  subordinated  life  to  service,  and 
though  abominating  monkish  vows  and  like  formal  re- 
nunciations, had  but  casual  consideration  for  any  happi- 
ness or  pleasure  which  did  not  make  for  the  glorifying  of 
the  Creator  and  Monarch  of  the  World,  the  Creator  and 
restorer  of  the  Saints. 


THE    END  OF   VOL.   I 


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